Abstract
Six house-hold Abyssinian pumps distributed in different villages of Mansoura (Mans-I, Mans-II and Mans-III) and Talkha (Talk-I, Talk-II and Talk-III) cities, Egypt, have been selected for regular seasonal water quality assessment during 2017. Water samples have been collected within the mid-periods of four seasons Standard assessment tools were employed for the integrated water quality assessment including Water Quality Index (WQI) and ISO standard algal toxicity test. WQI displayed remarkable local and seasonal variations with excellent (≥ 90) and good (70 - 89) only recorded for water samples collected from Mans-I pump located in sparsely populated area and far 50 meters only from the eastern (Damietta) branch of Nile River. WQI of other pumps located in densely populated areas and far kilometers from the Nile branch indicated either medium (50-69) or bad (25-49) quality depending on sampling season and sampling site location. All water samples collected from the pump Mans-I were non toxic without any inhibitory effects on the growth of the standard test alga Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata. Water samples from all other pumps, however, showed obvious toxic effects on test algae growth with varying EC50 values ranged between15.8% and 83%, depending on water sample and the sampling season. Concisely, all water samples collected from Mans-I pump were health safe with acceptable drinking water guidelines while samples collected from other pumps can impose great human health risks if used for drinking
Highlights
It has become evident that water scarcity and declining access to drinking water of acceptable and health safe quality represent acute global problems prevailing in arid and semi-arid countries, including Egypt.Water quality is a term used to characterize the physico-chemical, and biological properties for its suitability for a specific use or purpose [1]
Only water samples collected during this study from Mans-I, Mans-II, Mans-III, and Talk-I pumps cope with this specific water quality parameter
The lowest Dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration (1.4 mg L1) was recorded for the water samples collected from the pump Talk-II during summer (Table 6) and the highest one (7.7 mg L-1) was reported in winter for the water sample collected from Mans-I pump (Table 4)
Summary
It has become evident that water scarcity and declining access to drinking water of acceptable and health safe quality represent acute global problems prevailing in arid and semi-arid countries, including Egypt.Water quality is a term used to characterize the physico-chemical, and biological properties for its suitability for a specific use or purpose [1]. Water Quality Index (WQI) is considered the most valuable method for accurate assessment of water quality. Calculation of NSF- WQI primarily relies on nine related water properties including dissolved oxygen, fecal coliform, pH, biochemical oxygen demand, temperature shift, total phosphate, nitrates, turbidity and total dissolved salts. Values of WQI range from 0.0 to 100, denoting the worst and the best water quality conditions, respectively [2]. The green microalga Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata has been approved as a standard test organism for water quality monitoring and toxicity assessment [4]. This standard test microalga maintains very sensitive response to narrow changes in quality of the tested solution(s) with marked growth inhibition and stimulation in response to toxic and non-toxic tested solutions, respectively
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