Effect of a pig farm on the physical and chemical properties of a river and groundwater

Research has been conducted to evaluate the effect of a large pig farm on the physical and chemical properties of river and groundwater within the close farm vicinity. A river "R" flows in 0.5-1 km distance of a farm border. River water was sampled at three following points: at farm border, sewage intake at decanter of a closed down treatment plant and outside the farm border. The groundwater samples were collected out of the observational network installed to examine physical and chemical properties of groundwater, that is 6 piezometers and a dug well. To do that, some geological bore-holes were made down to 5 m depth. The piezometric examinations showed a significant concentration of nitrogen compounds, phosphates and chlorides in groundwater. Well water showed the contents of ammonium and nitrate nitrogen to exceed the boundary values for drinking water tenfold and figured out at 5.52 mg/dm3 and 100.72 mg/dm3, respectively. The river water examined demonstrated a substantial concentration of ammonium nitrogen (mean 3.25 mg/dm3), nitrite one (0.06 mg/dm3) as well as total suspension (38.39 mg/dm3). The parameters have greatly decreased the examined water purity grade and ranked it among purity grade III.