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Presented at the NABS Annual meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2004
in Bioassessment
Effects of grazing and gold mining on stream water quality in the Selenge River Watershed, Mongolia
J. Bachmann and B. Hayford. Department of Life Sciences, Wayne State College, Wayne, NE 68787 U.S.A.
Mongolia has undergone significant changes in land use over the past decade. Increase in intensive grazing practices has followed a reduction of traditional grazing practices in which herds were rotated, sometimes on a daily basis. Gold mining has increased and is often done without environmental over site. We hypothesized that grazing and gold mining would result in increased Turbidity and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in streams. We collected water quality data from 52 streams in the northeastern part of the Selenge River Watershed, Mongolia, during July of 2003. A subgroup of these stream sites was selected based on similar sediment type, stream gradient, and stream order to remove confounding variables. The remaining stream sites were exposed to gold mining effluent, grazing, or both. Pearson Product Correlations of the water quality data indicated that Turbidity was strongly and significantly correlated to gold mining, but was not strongly or significantly correlated to grazing. TDS was not strongly or significantly correlated to gold mining but was moderately and significantly correlated to grazing. Conductivity and pH were strongly and significantly correlated to TDS, but were much more significantly correlated to grazing than was TDS, perhaps indicating greater sensitivity to changes in that land use.
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