Article Assessment of the Effluents of Basra City Main Water Treatment Plants for Drinking and Irrigation Purposes Suhad Almuktar 1,2,3, Ahmed Naseh Ahmed Hamdan 4 and Miklas Scholz 2,3,5,* 1 Department of Architectural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Basra, Al Basra 61004, Iraq;
[email protected] 2 Division of Water Resources Engineering, Department of Building and Environmental Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University, P.O. Box 118, 221 00 Lund, Sweden 3 Civil Engineering Research Group, School of Science, Engineering and Environment, The University of Salford, Newton Building, Salford M5 4WT, UK 4 Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, The University of Basra, Al Basra 61004, Iraq;
[email protected] 5 Department of Civil Engineering Science, School of Civil Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Johannesburg, Kingsway Campus, PO Box 524, Aukland Park, Johannesburg 2006, South Africa * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +46-(0)462228920; Fax: +46-(0)462224435 Received: 22 August 2020; Accepted: 25 November 2020; Published: 27 November 2020 Abstract: A severe water scarcity challenge is facing Iraq, which is predominantly due to the absence of water management policies, negatively impacting the water quantity and quality provision from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Moreover, these practices have led to the intrusion of the Arabian Gulf salinity wedge into the Shatt Al-Arab River (SAR), which is the main water source for most water treatment plants (WTPs) in Basra city. In addition, the inadequate management and operation for most WTPs is another reason for the deterioration of water quality provided to Basra province.