Assessment of the anthropogenic impact on the quality of the surface waters of Lake Shkodra (Albanian Part)

• Pages: 39-47

39

Vol. 10 No. 3

November, 2024

Academic Journal of Business, Administration

Law and Social Sciences

E-ISSN 2410-8693

ISSN 2410-3918

Research Article

© 2024 Nevila Bushati

This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Assessment of the anthropogenic impact on the quality of the surface waters

of Lake Shkodra (Albanian Part)

Nevila Bushati

Water Study Center for Shkodra Region, Faculty of Natural Sciences,

University of Shkodra, Albania

DOI: hps://doi.org/10.2478/ajbals-2024-0018

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of Shkodra lake waters in terms of

physical-chemical and microbiological parameters, knowing that many people frequent this

water lake to bath in spring and summer. Lake Shkodra is the largest freshwater body on the

Balkan Peninsula. It covers an area of about 370-600 km2 and is shared between Montenegro

and Albania. Evaluation of Lake Shkodra was realized during the period October 2021-June

2022 for Albanian Part. The study was carried out in six stations of the Lake Shkodra based

on the anthropogenic impact in some dierent points of Lake Shkodra. The physical-chemical

parameters are: temperature, pH, turbidity and conductivity. The analyzed microbiological

parameters are: heterotrophic bacteria, Intestinal Enterococci, Escherichia coli. The results showed

that most physical-chemical and microbiological parameters are within the limited values

allowed by the WHO and Directive 2006/7/EC for surface water with some exceptions in few

points.

Keywords: pH, turbidity, conductivity, temperature, heterotrophic bacteria, Escherichia coli,

Intestinal enterococci etc.

1. Introduction

Lake Shkodra is the largest freshwater body on the Balkan Peninsula. The drainage

area of the lake is about 5,500 km 2 (4,470 km2in Montenegro and 1,030 km2 in Albania).

Because of its specic hydrological characteristics, exposure to Mediterranean

climate, close connection to Adriatic Sea via Buna River, diverse shoreline, and

physical-chemical water quality it is home to myriads of animal and plant species,

many of which are endemic to the lake or region (GIZ, 2017). The lake water trophy

has a considerable impact on the outow of wastewater containing organic maer

for decomposition, as well as phosphorous detergents and agricultural chemical