Evaluation of Water Quality and Heavy Metal Indices of Some Water Resources at Kafr El-Dawar Region, Egypt

Kafer El-Dawr is a major industrial and municipality city at the western area of Nile Delta, northern Egypt. Many factories are founded in Kafr El-Dawar region that discharges many pollutant elements. Assessment of Water quality is an important issue to know whether it is safe or not for irrigation. So, twenty-five water samples were collected from some water sources established in Kafer El- Dawr region. These sources are Yarn and Fabric (YD), Kafer El-Dawr Defshu (KDD), Dabora Abu Qir (DAD), Dabora Defshu Canal (DC) and Abu Qir (AD). Whisker box plot-median indicated that the heavy metals in the waters of these drains can be classified according to their concentration homogeneity into (a) wide spreadheterogeneous included: Cr, Co and Cu. (b) Moderate spread - moderately homogeneous included: Pb, Ni and Zn, and (c) narrow spread - homogeneous included: Fe, Cd, Li and Mn. The correlation study classified the heavy metals into three groups: The positively highly correlation between Pb and Cd, Co and Cr concluded that the water resources have the same pollution source. Contrary, the negatively highly correlated between (Pb_Mn), (Mn_Cu) and (Co_Li) might be a tool to assume that these heavy metals originated from different pollution resources. Water quality for irrigation was evaluated by water quality index (WQI), heavy metals pollution in short and long-term use by conventional scale, heavy metals contamination index (CI) and metal index (MI). According to EPA the concentrations of heavy metals was generally safe except cadmium for short-term use. For long-term use, Co occupied the polluted class in all water resources and Mn in water resource (KDD). The risky pollution was found in Cd and Cr in all resources as well as Mn in (DAD) and (AD) resources. Water quality index (WQI) showed that these water resources are good for irrigation utilization. Metal index values cleared that drains or canal are seriously threatened with metal pollution for irrigation usage (MI 1). Only KDD drain has no heavy metal problems to use in irrigation. The contamination index (CI) showed that the water resources (YD), (DAD) and (AD) had negative values of -5.67, -7.26 and -7.49, respectively. This is indicated that these water resources are safe to use in short-term run. Contrary, all studied water resources were highly contaminated and cannot be use at the long run.