Use of Benthic Macro Invertebrates as a Biological Indicator in Assessing Water Quality of River Puyo, Puyo, Pastaza, Ecuador
Mariadoss Selvanayagam,
Ricardo Abril
Issue:
Volume 4, Issue 1, February 2016
Pages:
1-12
Received:
16 February 2016
Accepted:
24 February 2016
Published:
7 March 2016
Abstract: There is an increased need for water conservation and protection for the sustainable livelihood of human beings as well as for the goodness of our environment. There is a greater awareness among the researchers, and Government organizations in the conservation of water resources in Central Amazonia region particularly in Ecuador. We have taken water sample from eight different sampling stations in the river Puyo, one of the major tributaries of river Amazon in South America. So far, no work has been carried out on the water quality of river Puyo to understand the biodiversity of macroinvertebrates and use of the same in the water quality assessment. Our final index included five matrices, namely Biotic index, Ephemeroptera,-Plecoptera-Trichopters (EPT) richness as richness measures, EPT and Chironomidae ratio, H’ and evenness (Hmax) to understand the water quality. We have also studied the physico chemical characteristics of water and coliform bacteria to assess the quality of water. All the values obtained reflect the quality of water in the sampling stations 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7, which are in the upstream located in the high altitudes as well as in the forest area, are better than the other three sampling stations 4, 5 and 8, which are located in the downstream in the urban area. In general, all the five sampling stations indicated more or less good water quality while the other three stations (4, 5 and 8) showed deterioration in water quality and thus necessitated a need for mitigation measure to save the Puyo river. The various metric values are (p value is > 0.05).
Abstract: There is an increased need for water conservation and protection for the sustainable livelihood of human beings as well as for the goodness of our environment. There is a greater awareness among the researchers, and Government organizations in the conservation of water resources in Central Amazonia region particularly in Ecuador. We have taken wate...
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