ZSZaref Sattar

Final-year Environmental Science student · Dhaka, Bangladesh

ZarefSattar

I measure river water. Fourteen months of it, by hand, fortnightly.

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What I actually do

I am in the final year of a BSc in Environmental Science at Jahangirnagar University in Savar. My subject is river water quality around Dhaka.

Since July 2025 I have taken a water sample from the same three points on the Turag every second Saturday, before eight in the morning, and run dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature and turbidity on each one. Sixty-two trips so far. I have missed four, all in the monsoon, and the log says so.

None of this is clever. It is one person, a rucksack, a bus to Ashulia and a spreadsheet that is kept properly. I am looking for a first job where that kind of patience is worth something — a lab, an NGO water programme, a consultancy that does monitoring.

  • 62Sampling trips since July 2025
  • 248Water samples run by hand
  • 3Rivers: Turag, Balu, Buriganga
  • 14Months of unbroken fortnightly data

Work

Five things. What they are, what they found, what is wrong with them.

  1. 01

    Turag dissolved oxygen, fortnightly

    Three fixed points above and below the Ashulia outfalls, sampled every second Saturday. Dissolved oxygen sat under 2 mg per litre for nineteen weeks of the year at the lower point. That is below what most fish here can live in.

    Winkler titration · YSI meter · Excel

    2025 — now
  2. 02

    A pH log a ward office can read

    Monthly pH and alkalinity from the Hazaribagh drain, written up as one A4 chart a month for a local NGO. One page, one number circled, no jargon. They have used it in three meetings with the city corporation.

    Bench pH meter · Excel · Bangla write-up

    2025
  3. 03

    A turbidity meter that cost Tk 900

    An LED, a photodiode and a microcontroller in a blacked-out pipe. Against the university nephelometer it agrees within 12% up to 200 NTU. Above that it drifts badly and I have not fixed it, so I do not use it there.

    Arduino · C · Bench calibration

    2025
  4. 04

    Ward 31 waste-pile map

    Walked the ward over eleven evenings and logged 180 places where waste is dumped at the roadside, with a photograph reference and a rough volume for each. Uploaded to OpenStreetMap so anybody can correct it.

    QGIS · OpenStreetMap · GPS

    2024 — 2025
  5. 05

    Rainfall against drain complaints

    Three years of daily rainfall read against three years of published drainage complaints for four Dhaka wards. Complaints rise sharply above 40 mm in a day. It is a correlation and nothing more — I have no drain capacity data, so I cannot say why.

    R · Excel · Public records

    2024

What I can do

  • Field sampling and handling62 trips, own protocol sheet
  • Winkler titration for dissolved oxygen248 samples run
  • pH, alkalinity and turbidityBench and field
  • Excel and pivot tablesThe whole log lives here
  • QGIS mappingWard map, basic layers
  • R for simple statisticsPlots and correlations only

What I cannot do yet

  • I have never run GC-MS or atomic absorption. I have watched both, once each.
  • My R stops at plots and correlation. I cannot build a model and defend it.
  • I have never written a full environmental impact assessment, only read four.
  • I have no experience of heavy metal testing, which is the obvious next thing for these rivers.

Education

  • 2022 — 2026

    BSc in Environmental Science

    Jahangirnagar University, Savar

    Expected 2026. CGPA 3.61 of 4.00 after seven semesters.

  • 2020 — 2022

    Higher Secondary Certificate, Science

    Notre Dame College, Dhaka

    GPA 5.00.

  • 2018 — 2020

    Secondary School Certificate

    Motijheel Government Boys High School

    GPA 5.00.

Available from March 2026

Get in touch

I am free from March 2026 and will go anywhere in Bangladesh for the right first job. I reply within a day.