Modeling Water Quality Using the QUAL2K Model

The issue of water is one of the most strategic and challenging issues of our time because it is essential to life and is not a man-made product. The quality of water resources is in a state of continuous decline. This situation is due to the socioeconomic development taking place in various countries. To address this situation and preserve water resources, strategies for protecting and managing water quality must be developed. While many models are available, the most appropriate one is the one that meets the research objectives. The objective of this paper is to model water quality along a 32-km stretch of the Sekkak Wadi (in the Tlemcen province, in northwestern Algeria) using the QUAL2K model to assess the environmental impact of multiple pollution discharges along the wadi. This work has enabled us to track the spatial evolution of the concentrations of various pollutants as well as their spread over time.