A Case Study on Assessment and Rehabilitation of IIUM Pusu River for Water Quality Improvement

Pusu river (or Sungai Pusu/Sg. Pusu) is one of the most severely polluted rivers in Malaysia. Pusu river is a tributary of River Gombak in the Klang River Basin, and the IIUM Gombak campus is located at the downstream part of Pusu river. This study was conducted in response to the recent cloudy river flow on the IIUM Gombak campus. Due to the lack of current data for water quality parameters in Pusu river, it is hard to identify the sources that contributed to the river's pollution. Hence, this study was to determine the sources of river water pollution by analysing the parameters for water quality. The analysis of river water quality showed that the average values of pH, conductivity, TDS, TSS, and turbidity were 7.09, 67.6 µs/cm, 46.5 mg/L, 131.8 mg/L, and 717.6 NTU, respectively. It can be seen that Pusu river has a severe sedimentation issue, as turbidity and TSS showed values beyond the allowable limit according to the National Water Quality Standards for Malaysia. As such, several river methods were suggested to rehabilitate Pusu river, which flows through the IIUM Gombak campus.