Assessing the effects of leachate on surface water quality: case of Kibati dumpsite, Hoima District

Abstract

A wide range of water usage as a critical resource in our daily activities goes through domestic, agricultural, transportation, industrial and health care. Usually, in developing countries, small households and small communities rely on groundwater. In contrast, later, while significant communities and urban areas depend on, surface water such as rivers and lakes, which are mostly treated at water treatment facilities. This study was assessing the effects of leachate dumpsite on surface water quality in the water of Kibati stream in Hoima District. Specifically, two objectives guided the study that is to say to determine the leachate concentration from the surface water and to determine determine the water quality variation along the surface water. A leachate sample was collected from the dumpsite and different water samples were collected from other points, upstream Kibati stream, and adjacent point to the dumpsite and downstream. These were taken to the laboratory for analysis. Data was analyzed in excel to determine the average concentration of the parameters. Results showed that the average pH of the leachate and the different water samples is 7.73 with the adjacent to the dumpsite having a more acidic pH (6.51) than all the other points of sampling. The average EC value of the leachate the different sampling points is 252.8 with the leachate having the highest (15970 Newton second per centimeter). This study concludes that indiscernible migration of decomposed waste into leachate from the base of the landfill to be the point source of surface water pollution. This obviously limits surface water functions for various purposes (such as domestic, industrial and agriculture). Implication of the surface water pollution could also be attributed to different health related problems. I recommend that ordinary landfills or dumpsites need to be outlawed and provision of modern sanitary landfills should be provided to alleviate the incessant surface water contamination. Government is to locate new landfills away from the general population to avoid contamination of their water supply.