Abstract

Land use characteristics such as urban form, impervious cover significantly impact the water environments with increased runoff and the degradation of water quality. Hence, storm water management becomes a prime concern to safeguard the receiving water quality of the surrounding environment. The paper primarily concentrated to investigate the impact of land use characteristics on the variability of urban storm water quality in Rajshahi City, Bangladesh. Storm water runoff samples were collected from three different land use areas such as residential (Aloker Mor, New Market), commercial (Zero Point, Shaheb Bazar) and industrial (Bscic, Sapura) in Rajshahi City, Bangladesh. Collected storm water samples were tested in the laboratory to determine the physical (temperature, pH, turbidity, electric conductivity (EC)) and chemical parameters (total suspended solids (SS), biological oxygen demand (BOD)) using standard quality control and test methods specified in APHA 1999. The test result shows that the residential storm water demonstrated the cleanest appearing with the lowest value of turbidity, suspended solids whereas the industrial had recorded the worst storm water quality comparing to others. On the other hand, BOD was found highest in commercial land use area. The study results will guide to storm water management of natural treatment systems for treating the storm water pollutants from specific land use.