Application of water quality index methods for the assessment of water quality in Kosovo, review

Abstract

At a global level, there is concern about the quality of water used for drinking, food preparation, irrigation, aquatic fauna and other components related to the life cycle, public health and aquatic ecosystems, while efforts to keep its quality under control continue. The European Parliament established a framework for action in the field of water policy, known as the Water Framework Directive 2000/60 EC. This directive emphasizes the need for an integrated approach to the conservation, improvement and sustainable use of water resources. A method for assessing water quality, called the Water Quality Index (WQI), was firstly applied in 1965, and it was then modified by other authors over decades. Other methods for calculating the WQI were developed and advanced, and today they have reached up to 20 WQI methods. These methods have today found widespread use throughout the scientific community worldwide to assess the quality of surface and groundwater. This review presents the findings gained by the use of water quality index methods on the quality of surface waters in different parts of the territory of the Republic of Kosovo. Both natural and human factors affected the quality of surface waters in the territory of Kosovo, which is characterized by Continental and Modified Mediterranean Climate, whith average precipitations ranging from 595.2 mm to 809.1 mm. Besides the precipitations, the hydraulic balance of the country is also impacted by the geological formation that outcrop which belong to an time interval that extends from Proterozoic to Quaternary. The highest (0.5 to 0.8) infiltration rate belong to the carbonate rocks (limestone, dolomite, marbled limestone) which represent the most important aquifer type. This paper aims to bring a systematic review of the written and electronic literature which was collected from a wide range of reliable scientific databases and through an analysis of the WQI methods applied for water quality assessment and the WQI data obtained, tried to present a complete view of the surface water quality in the hydrographic network of the Republic of Kosovo. Apart from differences in water quality classifying ranges of the used WQI methods (NSFWQI, CCME-WQI and WA-WQI), they were successfully applied for the evaluation of the water quality in Kosovo and revealed that the worse quality waters (low WQI values) belong to the Lepenc River Basin, while good quality waters (high WQI) to the Ibër River Basin.