Status Assessment of Heavy Metals in Water of the Lepenci River Basin, Kosova

Water represents an essential element for life and living things on earth. Aquatic ecosystems play a decisive role in the socio-economic development in urban and rural areas. In recent decades, there has been concern at the global level with regard to the deterioration of aquatic ecosystems due to the pollution, which is a product of mainly anthropogenic activity. Heavy metals pollution is worrisome for the ecological balance of the aquatic environment, affecting a variety of organisms. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to characterize the quality of water in the Lepenci River basin, to express heavy metals concentration, and to determine the surface water quality index in this basin. In order to achieve such an objective, water samples were collected at eight stations for analyzing the concentrations for heavy metals. Heavy metals were determined by means of atomic absorption spectrophotometry. A good correlation was found between Pb and Zn (r = 0.84), whereas the average negative correlation coefficient was shown between Mn and Cr (r = -0.6513). The heavy metals concentrations varied from 0.0092 to 0.1135 mg/L.The mean concentrations of heavy metals found in the river water were in the order of: Mn > Fe > Pb > Ni > Cd > Zn > Cr > Cu. The Water Quality Index varied from 57 to 81, with the average value of WQI = 68.1250, which ranks the surface water of this basin as fair. From the results we have concluded that the Lepenci River waters during the monitoring period have had low pollution from heavy metals.