Surface Water Quality Assessment of Lacustrine Ecosystem Case Study of Boukourdane Dam, Algeria

Boukourdane dam in northern Algeria plays a fundamental role in local society, as a source of irrigation and drinking water. To characterize the temporal variability of water quality in the dam lake, monitoring was conducted monthly for 2 years (January 2013–January 2015) at four sites. The relationship between the physicochemical parameters was evaluated by the Kruskal–Wallis test, and the seasonal-variation evaluation of the environmental factors was conducted by principal component analysis (PCA). The water in the dam tended to be alkaline, with the highest pH = 9.95 recorded in the spring of 2013. The dissolved oxygen levels varied between 2.58 and 11.61 mg L⁻¹, the nitrates were low. The overall water quality in the Boukourdane dam is medium to good according to SEQ-EAU standard.