JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

Since 2001, water main drainage of sugarcane farms located in the east side of Karoon River has been deviated to Shadegan lagoon. The average discharge and salinity of the drain water in spring and summer were 20 and 20.5 m³ sec^-1 and 17.1 and 13.3 dS m^-1, respectively. Therefore, there have been considerable changes in the lagoon water quality when compared to the time before entering the drain water. Therefore, an experiment was performed to investigate the effects of sugarcane waste water on the quality of Lagoon’s water. The results showed that the average salinity was increased significantly before and after the entrance of the drainage into different points.  The average salinity in the sample point No.2 (along the entrance of the drainage) in summer was changed from 17.7 to 51.5 dS m^-1. The results, therefore, revealed that after the  entrance of drainage water to  Lagoon, during summer time, water salinity and mineral concentrations were increased for all locations except  the points of 1 (on the northern margin of Lagoon) and 3 (influenced by Jarahi River). Phosphate ion concentration was increased at all investigated locations, but the highest phosphate concentrations were observed at the location points of 1 and 2 in summer. Given the important role of this lagoon in the protection of animal and plant spices, it is essentially important for sugarcane production companies to adopt a special measure for the protection of Lagoon from any source of pollution.