A research study was conducted to characterize the status of the surface water quality of the Parcheș, Babele, Petica and Somova lakes, situated in the Somova - Parches aquatic complex, located West of Tulcea (Romania), nearby of the industrial area. Water samples were gathered from several sampling points of each lake and investigated for various physico-chemical parameters including water depth (m), temperature (oC), pH (units), DO (mg/l), N-NO2- (mg/l), N-NO3- (mg/l), P-PO43-(mg/l), EC

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... ), TDS (mg/l), SO42-(mg/l), turbidity (NTU), TSS (mg/l), transparency (m), chlorophyll "a" (μg/l), SiO2 (mg/l), H2S (mg/l), S2- (mg/l) etc., during the period of October 2017. Different tested environmental indicators showed a considerable range of values in all investigated lakes. In addition, disparate punctual sampling points were chosen from every lake to assess the levels of selected heavy metals of interest in surface water. Generally, no significant exceedances of the investigated heavy metals were recorded excepting elements as Ba, Mn, Ni and Se which showed slight variations for each parameter associated with the Class I, and, respectively, Class II category, in comparison to the maximum allowable limits established by the water quality standards. The results from this study indicated that the physico-chemical characteristics and surface water quality from the Somova - Parcheș aquatic complex may be different due to the natural context (e.g., regional differences in land use, hydrology, underlying geology, climate, flowing regime etc.) and anthropogenic effects of industrial activities that take place in the Tulcea town area.