Abstract
In the Philippines, 180 out of 421 rivers are heavily polluted and may soon be declared biologically dead. In the province of Bataan, industrial activities lead to contamination and water quality degradation. This makes the Talisay River in Balanga, Bataan, prone to the effects of establishments activities such as sewage from commercial and residential areas. The researchers aim to utilize the Granulated Filtering Media (GFM) as an adsorbent made up of fly ash, gypsum powder, coco peat, and cement for wastewater treatment of the polluted creek at Balanga City, Bataan. This GFM was subjected to seven-day water quality monitoring and tests to obtain its pollutant-reduction capability on the study site when incorporated into gabion mattresses. Study's water quality assessment tests revealed peak reductions showing that the gabion mattresses with GFM installed significantly reduced pollutant parameters like nutrients such as phosphate (79 %), nitrate (41 %), and ammonia (65 %) as well as water quality parameters such as chemical oxygen demand (42 %), turbidity (18 %), total dissolved solids (64 %), electric conductivity (51 %), and peak increases in DO (56 %), and pH level (3 %). The significant relationships of all the pollutant parameters observed were validated through Principal Component Analysis, extracted from 2D Loadings’ variance explained of 71.2 %, with 57.6 % attributed to the first principal component and 13.6 % to the second, and a 3D Biplot that explained 82.7 % of the variance, with 57.6 % from the first component, 13.6 % from second and 11.5 % from the third component.
