Pollutant Load and Assimilation Capacity in Martapura River,

South Kalimantan, Indonesia

Tien Zubaidah

1,2

, Nieke Karnaningroem

, and Agus Slamet

Enviromental Engineering Department, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya, Indonesia

Enviromental Health Department, Politeknik Kesehatan Banjarmasin, Banjar Baru, Indonesia

Keywords: pollutant load, assimilation capacity, martapura river

Abstract: Rivers always have multifunctional role that is vital for drinking water needs. Until now the Martapura River

has been used for various types of activities such as domestic households, tourism, fisheries, agriculture to

the industry which all cause the quality of water to decrease. This study aims to calculate the pollution load

and assimilation capacity by calculating the BOD, COD and TSS parameters analysed using linear regression.

The results of parameter analysis of BOD, COD and TSS have shown that under the conditions of the current

pollutant load and its assimilating capacity, the Martapura River water cannot carry out the refining process

itself.

1 INTRODUCTION

The function of the river becomes very important

because of its role as a transportation facility,

community water source, fisheries, agricultural

interests, and as a maintainer of natural hydrological

conditions. However, even with those vital functions,

the river as a final waste disposal site is still

commonly encountered throughout Indonesia. Back

then, the waste produced by human activities that was

discharged into waterways did not become a severe

problem because the river had sufficient assimilation

capacity to accommodate the waste in the body river.

However, as the river bank population grows, the

declining assimilation capacity of river water against

waste has become an important issue that must be

carefully considered.

Currently, a hundred and two rivers have

traversed the city of Banjarmasin, consisting of fifty-

four creeks, forty-five average rivers and three large

rivers, with the Barito river becomes the largest river

in the area. With the Barito River estuary area reaches

more than 2 kilometres per square and 900 km long,

it makes it the most important waterway for water

environment conditions in Banjarmasin City (South

Kalimantan Province Environmental Agency, 2017).

The declining quality of river water in the city of

Banjarmasin has been caused mainly by the random

domestic waste disposal into the river bodies

(Normelani, 2003), followed by poor urban sanitation

patterns and unhygienic behaviour among riverbank

communities (Normasari, 2016).

Data from the Directorate of Water Pollution

Control also shows that the most significant

contribution of waste (range 58.31 to 94.16 per cent)

comes from domestic waste and this waste tends to

increase every year (Ministry of Environment and

Forestry, 2017). With those conditions, this study

aimed to investigate domestic pollutant loads and

river assimilation capacity in Banjarmasin City.

2 RESEARCH METHOD

Sampling and measurement of water samples were

carried out three times in September 2018 in the

Martapura River, Banjarmasin City, South

Kalimantan (figure 1). Observations and analyses

were carried out in situ and ex-situ where ex situ study

was carried out at the Banjarmasin City

Environmental Laboratory. Total pollutant load per

time was used to express the pollutant load.

According to Tebbut (1997), by multiplying the

concentration and flow rate of the river, we can

calculate the pollutant load value. For the capacity of

assimilation, the amount is obtained by processing the

226

Zubaidah, T., Karnaningroem, N. and Slamet, A.

Pollutant Load and Assimilation Capacity in Martapura River, South Kalimantan, Indonesia.

DOI: 10.5220/0008908900002481

In Proceedings of the Built Environment, Science and Technology International Conference (BEST ICON 2018), pages 226-229

ISBN: 978-989-758-414-5

correlation graph between the concentration of each

waste parameter in the river with the pollutant load of

the setting itself and then analysed by connecting it

with the water quality standard line.

Figure 1: Sampling station point in the Martapura River,

South Kalimantan.

Regression analysis is used as an auxiliary method

to determine intersection lines between pollutant

loads and the quality standards required for each

parameter. Pollution load parameters are used as

independent variables and pollutant concentration

parameters are used as dependent variables. Thus, the

pollution variables in the inlet can be mathematically

written as follows.

Y= a +bx

(1)

remarks :

y = Pollution concentration parameters

x = Pollutant load parameter value

a = Intersection with upright axis (middle / general

average)

b = slope/gradient (regression coefficient for

parameters)

The pollutant load value of a certain parameter

became the X variable while the parameter

concentration value became the Y variable. A simple

linear regression equation was used to answer

whether the concentration of a parameter was affected

by the parameter’s pollutant load itself. The simple

linear regression equation assumes that all pollutants

from the land will flow into the river. The more the

pollutant load enters the river, the higher the

concentration in the water will be. Furthermore, the

assimilation capacity value only applies to the area

specified in the study.

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Hydrologically, the city of Banjarmasin is surrounded

by large rivers and their branches, flowing from the

north and the northeast to the southwest and the south,

and forming a dendritic drainage pattern. The

Martapura River that flows across the centre of the

city is located in densely populated residential areas

with various industrial and domestic activities. This

condition directly contributes to the decreasing

quality of the Martapura River’s water. We will

further discuss the Martapura River’s potential

pollution loads and its assimilation capacity.

3.1 Martapura River’s Potential

Pollution Load

The magnitude of the Martapura River's potential

pollution load sourced from domestic waste has been

summarised in Table 1 below:

Table 1: Martapura River’s Potential Pollution Load

Resume

Domestic

pollutant sources

Pollutant load potential

(kg/day)

BOD

COD

TSS

Non-point source

a.household waste

1137.45

1409.45

939.63

b. hotel waste

921.91

1267.63

875.81

c. restaurant waste

25.43

38.15

22.84

d. market waste

307.05

380.48

253.65

e. school waste

112.33

139.19

92.80

f. hospital waste

12.3

16.91

11.69

g. office waste

32.71

40.53

27,02

Point source

129,18

152.00

Total

2678.36

3292.34

2375.44

Based on Table 1, it can be seen that waste

originated from households provides the most

significant contribution as an indoor pollutant

primary source. A poorly managed household waste

was resulting in river highly polluted by domestic

waste. These results are in line with the research by

Palamuleni (2002) which has stated that the primary

pollutant of water is the habit of dumping domestic

waste massively as well as the lack of municipal

sanitation facilities. The burden of river water

pollution will continue to increase along with the

development of population demographics in a region,

synergising with economic growth and industry

Sampling station points

Rivers line

Banjarmasin

administrative border

Pollutant Load and Assimilation Capacity in Martapura River, South Kalimantan, Indonesia

227

(Goel, 2006), and this also applies to the city of

Banjarmasin.

3.2 The Martapura River’s

Assimilation Capacity

An indirect approach was taken to determine the

assimilation capacity of the Martapura River, which

is by linking water quality and its waste load. If the

pollutant concentration is above the intersection line

of the regression and the quality standard

concentration line, it means that the pollutant load has

exceeded the river's ability to clean itself. This

condition causes polluted rivers. On the other hand, if

the pollutant concentration is below the intersection

line of the regression and the quality standard

concentration line, it means that pollutants are still

undergoing a self-purification process. This condition

reflects the river in a non-polluted situation.

Table 2 shows the regression results for BOD,

COD and TSS parameters to obtain assimilation

capacity values. The function Y has shown the

average quality of the Martapura River’s waters from

upstream (Jingah River) to the downstream (Barito

River), in the dry season of 2018.

Table 2: The relationship function for river pollution and

river quality at the upstream, midstream, and downstream.

Para

meters

Y function

Qualit

y Std

(mg/L)

Asimilatio

n capacity

(kg/day)

BOD

Y=6E-05x + 298,58

817.47

COD

Y=2E-05x + 1136,10

3110.47

TSS

Y=8E-08x + 178,21

487.89

Assimilation capacity is the limit of river pollutant

load which can still be cleaned naturally through

physical, chemical and biological events. From Table

2, the COD assimilation capacity value is 3110.47

kg/day, which is the maximum limit for pollutant

loads that can still be accommodated by the river until

the river conditions are not entirely polluted. In figure

2, we can see a graph of the relationship between the

total BOD pollutant load and the water quality

downstream for the BOD parameter.

Figure 2: Regression analysis for BOD pollutant load and

BOD level on the Martapura River.

In Figure 1, it can be seen that the river pollution

load for the BOD parameter has exceeded the

standard quality limit. This indicates the pollution

load for the BOD parameter exceeds its assimilation

capacity (817.47 kg/day). It can also be said that the

river has experienced pollution.

Figure 3: Regression analysis for COD pollutant load and

COD level on the Martapura River.

Figure 3 shows that the river pollution load for

COD parameters has exceeded the quality standard

line. This condition indicates that the pollution load

for the COD parameter exceeds its assimilation

capacity, or in other words, the river has been

categorised as polluted.

BEST ICON 2018 - Built Environment, Science and Technology International Conference 2018

228

Figure 3: Regression analysis for TSS pollutant load and

TSS level on the Martapura River.

Based on Figure 3, it can be seen that from 6

observation points, all of them are above the

assimilation line capacity of the TSS parameter

(487.89 kg/day). This means that the pollutant load

value is higher than the assimilation capacity value

and causes the river to be polluted.

4 CONCLUSIONS

All parameters studied at the observation point (BOD.

COD and TSS) have exceeded assimilation capacity.

The assimilation capacity of the Martapura River is

strongly influenced by the burden of river pollutants

originated from domestic waste, especially household

waste. Synergistic intervention is needed to reduce

the potential of pollutant load and at the same time, to

increase the assimilation capacity of the Martapura

River.

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