Appraisal of climate change and source of heavy metals, sediments in water of the Kunhar River watershed, Pakistan

The amount of heavy metals (HMs) in sediment is regarded as a global crisis, with a large share in developing countries like Pakistan. Water and sediment samples were collected from ten locations of the Kunhar River basin, Pakistan. Eleven HMs such as (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Na, Se, Pb, and Zn) in water and sediments were investigated from Kunhar River basin. According to the results, the Kunhar River’s water quality is excellent, except for a slightly higher BOD value that can be minimized by preventing the dumping of human-oriented trash around the river or stream. Concentrations of metals in water have the trend of decreasing in water and sediments, indicating that the accumulation of metals in the sediment can affect the water chemistry of aquatic systems due to any physical or chemical process in the system. River ecosystems already have suffered from impacts of climate change, and these impacts are only expected to worsen. Predictors of climatic variability effects on water quality and quantity may benefit from our research, greater consideration should be given to the variety of metals in relationship to climate variation in order to get a clearer perspective about how much risk aquatic life will be faced by such metals.