Impact Assessment of Wastewater and Solid Waste Disposal in to Wadi Gaza on Groundwater, Soil, and Seawater

Wadi Gaza natural reserve in Palestine is exposed to aggressive pollution activities in the form of disposing huge amounts of wastewater and solid waste a long its bed. This study was initiated to investigate the extent to which the environment of Wadi Gaza has been damaged due to these activities. The specific environmental elements investigated in this work were: groundwater, soil, and sea water. The study relied on field samples of groundwater and soil along the 10 km of the Wadi bed in addition to samples from seawater opposite to the Wadi estuary area. Groundwater is found to be highly polluted with organic matter ranging from 480 to 500 mg/l as BOD, while detergents concentration ranges from 1.7 to 25.8 mg/l and lead as a sever toxic heavy metals has its maximum values of 0.37 mg/l at many locations. Significant concentrations of heavy metals, detergents, and salts were detected across the soil profile. Seawater is found to be highly polluted with fecal coliforms (2.4x 10 cell/100 ml), detergents (0.71 mg/l), suspended solids (178 mg/l), and heavy metals (e.g., Pb (0.95 mg/l) spreading to a distance of 500 m in the area around the Wadi estuary. It is concluded that an immediate action should be taken to stop these pollution loads. An emergency wastewater treatment plant should be built in the middle area to stop raw sewage discharge to the Wadi. Moreover, an immediate monitoring and law enforcement plan should be implemented to prevent solid waste disposal into the Wadi course. Keywords—Natural reserve, pollution, wastewater, Wadi Gaza, solid waste.