Study and Selection of a Program for Surface Water Quality Monitoring, Case Study: " Karaj River" Watershed

Recognition of quality and quantity of water resource and changes in its future demand trend are main precondition for water source planning and management. Increase in population growth rate, over urbanization, industrialization and changes in land use pattern all cause and uncontrolled and over use of existing sources. in this condition, reasonable management get very difficult and complex. Present thesis aims at selecting a proper monitoring and evaluation program for measurement of “Karaj River” water quality. There are four kind monitoring program in term of different goals and conditions including inventory(survey) monitoring, compliance monitoring,trend monitoring and impact assessment monitoring. This research is carried out in three main steps; Identification/Recognition of prevailing monitoring programs, environmental characteristic of region and its need to adoption of a monitoring program, Selecting the best appropriate of monitoring program fits to region’s conditions or a mixed one. After survey, field of study divided to three distinct sections; dam upstream, lake(in front of dam)and dam downstream.Finally, regarding systematic approach, following programs are derived for different subsystems: 1.Dam upstream: A mixed monitoring program includes impact assessment and compliance Monitoring for assessment the impacts of pollutants on flora and fauna, evaluation the successfulness of watershed management actions and potential uses of water in term of its quality.2.Lake: trend monitoring for measuring the long term trends in quality of water and sediments of lake. 3.Dam downstream: A mixed program includes impact assessment and compliance monitoring for ensuring the water quality sanitation before entering the distribution system.