Trend of River Water Quality and Pollution in Coastal Zone: A Case Study of Perak State Malaysia

Oxygen is an element of utmost importance to life on earth. Lack of oxygen will cause the survival of a species in an area to come to an end. So this also apply too the aquatic habitat in the coastal zone. This paper attempts to examine the trend of water pollution that is related to the element of oxygen in the river and the focus of the study is on the coastal zone areas of Perak. The data used were from the Department of Environment Malaysia, which was collected in many years. The parameters used were COD, BOD and DO. The analyses were carried out including descriptive analysis and Mann Kendall. The findings indicate various values; on average the BOD value indicates the existence of contamination exceeding the standard with a difference in value that is significant between the districts because there are districts of which the BOD value is higher compared to the other districts. For COD, on average its value is still below the standard of the Department of Environment, with the highest value recorded in Manjung district. At the same time, the DO indicates good value for all districts in the coastal zone of Perak. The district that is experiencing oxygen-based water pollution problems is the district of Manjung which recorded high BOD and COD values.