Impact of the heated water discharge on the water quality in a shallow lowland dam reservoir

Abstract

The purpose of the work was to determine the relationship between the of the water quality parameters in an artificial reservoir used as cooling ponds. Factor analysis were applied to analyze eighteen physico-chemical parameters such as air and water temperature, dissolved oxygen concentration, visibility of the Secchi disk, concentrations of total nitrogen, ammonium, nitrate, nitrite, total phosphorus, phosphate, concentrations of calcium, magnesium, chlorides, sulfates and total dissolved salts, pH, chemical oxygen demand and electric conductivity from 2002-2019 to investigated cooling water discharge. Exploratory factor analysis allowed identified four factors were obtained from 54.1% (in discharge zone) to 56.7% (in dam zone). In discharge and pelagic zones confirmatory factor analysis showed that four latent variables: salinity, temperature, nitrogen and phosphorus provide good fit, but in the dam zone the better fit was obtained for the latent variables salinity, temperature, nutrient and eutrophic. Correlations between latent variables temperature, nitrogen, phosphorus or nutrient and eutrophic show a significant effect of temperature on the transformation of nitrogen and phosphorus compounds.