Effects of land use on chemical water quality of three small streams in Budapest

Abstract

The location and development of cities has been influenced basically by various environmental factors. However, the relationship is bilateral, because not only the environment can affect the city, but the city can affect the environment in different ways, depending on recovery. This is especially true in the case of large cities such as Budapest where the different geological, geomorphological, hydrological, soil and bio-geographical conditions can be changed in very small areas, which implies that land use can be also modified as well. The aim of our study was to determine the chemical water quality of three small streams in Budapest which have same water flow and compare the field and the laboratory test results. Between many natural characteristics of these streams similarity is evident, however, several differences were found between the watersheds in terms of human land use. Statistical data analysis was performed as well, which was the aim to explore the relationship between the parameters. Overall, according to our study it can be concluded, the small streams have similar water chemical properties, but some parameters need special attention in the future, because the investigated small streams can be categorized into polluted and sometimes heavily polluted category.