International Journal of Multidisciplinary Informative Research and Review 2021; 1(6) : 244 - 251 Published online February 28, 2021 (https://agribusinessedu.com/ijmirr-journal/) DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5655206 ISSN: 2709 - 6289 (Online) Impact of Urban Wastes on Water Quality of Turag River Hamamah Sadiqa 1, * , Md. Al-Amin 2 , Md. Motaleb Hossain Sarker 3 1 Department of Civil Engineering, Sonargaon University, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2 Local Government Engineering Department, Bangladesh 3 Water Resources Management Division, Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services, Dhaka, Bangladesh Email address: * Corresponding author: hamamah.sadiqa@gmail.com (H. Sadiqa) 66alamin@gmail.com (Md. A. Amin), motalebsarker@gmail.com (Md. M. H. Sarker) To cite this article: Hamamah Sadiqa, Md. Al-Amin, Md. Motaleb Hossain. Impact of Urban Wastes on Water Quality of Turag River. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Informative Research and Review. Vol. 1, No. 6, 2021, pp. 244 - 251. Abstract: Department of Environment, Government of Bangladesh has declared the River Turag, running by the side of Dhaka city and one of the most polluted rivers in Bangladesh, as one of the ecologically critical areas (ECA). Due to continuous disposal of untreated industrial effluents and dumping of municipal sewerage and drainage water the Turag River is approaching its danger level rapidly, degrading its ecological status, which is very alarming to the lives of this river. A lot of works were done to report such a deterioration of the river. To assess all such works and to suggest a consolidated recommendation, some important research results and standards declared by WHO, FAO, DoE and Bangladesh standards were reviewed. The color of the river turned to pitch-black with a foul odor. DO was 3 ppm with a contrasting standard level of 5 ppm.An extreme elevation of COD up to 1020 ppm against 4 ppm for drinking water and TDS, up to 6000 ppm against 1000 ppm were alarming. Regarding the concentration of heavy metals, the chromium level was raised up to 0.65 ppm against its standard level of 0.05 ppm and the level of nickel, 0.62 ppm against 0.1 ppm. It is recommended that the Government of Bangladesh may take necessary steps to mitigate the existing aquatic environmental problems of the Turag River water in such a way that it may be declared as a safe ecological area. Keywords: Turag River, Industrial Effluents, Municipal Wastes, Physicochemical Parameters of Water, Heavy Metals, ECA, Mitigation. 1. Introduction Almost 71% of the earth’s surface is covered with water. Out of it, 1% is freshwater from rainfall, snow-melts and ground water that people need every day to live(How Much Water Is There on, in and above the Earth, n.d.). A major part of this water is available in streams, rivers, lakes and other inland water bodies. Only this freshwater is used randomly in domestic (drinking, food preparing, bathing, washing, gardening) industrial, agricultural and aquaculture purposes. Thus, freshwater is one of the most generous gift’s of the nature (Afrin et al., 2014b; How Much Water Is There on, in and above the Earth, n.d.; Mobin et al., 2014; Nawshin, Sultana, et al., 2016). But, among all the natural resources, this water is the most poorly managed one in developing countries(Islam et al., 2012). Even a lion’s share of it is exploited by industrial work such as fabrication, processing, washing, dilution, cooling and even for transportation. Because, maximum solid wastes, waste waters from domestic works, untreated industrial effluents and toxic precipitates from agricultural fields often find their end result in the surface waters. Also, the oil spill from water vehicles is continuously polluting the river waters (Nawshin, Sadab, et al., 2016). Bangladesh is a low lying flat country with vast inland water bodies, including some of the biggest rivers in the world (Matin, M. A., n.d.; Mobin et al., 2014). The capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, is one of the densely populated cities in the world. Though,