Tracking the Causes of a Mass Fish Kill at a Mediterranean River within a Protected Area

Olga Petriki,Anthoula Vafeiadou,Ilias Tekidis,Panagiota Michalopoulou,Athina Patsia,Stella Samartzi,Dimitrios Mallinis,Dimitra Bobori

doi:10.3390/w13070989

Olga Petriki, Anthoula Vafeiadou + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/w13070989

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Abstract

In this study, an extreme event observed at the intermittent Mediterranean Bogdanas River within the territory of the protected area of the National Park of Lakes Koronia-Volvi and Macedonian Temp that led to a mass fish kill was investigated. We aimed to define the main pressures affecting water quality and biota, specifically fish. No organic poisons, pesticides or heavy metal concentrations were detected in fish tissue, while high values of BOD5, COD, TN and conductivity were measured in water samples. These results, combined with the prevailing hydroclimatic factors (high temperatures and low water flow), lead to the assumption that mass fish mortality was triggered by high organic loads discharged from an upstream point source of pollution, and in particular an active landfill.

Highlights

A new policy for water resources management was entered into force on 22 December2000 by the European Union under the Framework of the Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD).This key tool promotes Community actions in the field of water policy between the MemberStates for protecting the aquatic ecosystems and attaining good status of all water resources.The approach for integrated management is mainly aimed at the geographical scale of theRiver Basins, while special mention is made for the protected areas within river basins.The harmonization of Greek legislation with the Community Directive-Framework2000/60/EC was reached with Law 3199/2003 (Government Gazette 280 A/09.12.2003) and Presidential Decree 51/2007 (Government Gazette 54/A/08.03.2007)
The subject of the present study was to investigate the causes of the mass fish kill event which took place during June of 2015 in Bogdanas River, impacting almost all known present fish species [22,37,38,39]
The low heavy metal concentrations detected in the tested fish tissues excluded the heavy metal contamination from the causals of the observed mass fish kill event in the Bogdanas River

Summary

Introduction

A new policy for water resources management was entered into force on 22 December2000 by the European Union under the Framework of the Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD).This key tool promotes Community actions in the field of water policy between the MemberStates for protecting the aquatic ecosystems and attaining good status of all water resources.The approach for integrated management is mainly aimed at the geographical scale of theRiver Basins, while special mention is made for the protected areas within river basins.The harmonization of Greek legislation with the Community Directive-Framework2000/60/EC was reached with Law 3199/2003 (Government Gazette 280 A/09.12.2003) and Presidential Decree 51/2007 (Government Gazette 54/A/08.03.2007). 2000 by the European Union under the Framework of the Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD) This key tool promotes Community actions in the field of water policy between the Member. Water Committee designated 14 River Basin Districts [1] in the country and one year later the national monitoring network [2] was established (over 2000 monitoring points) and put in operation, contributing to the first cycle of the River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs), followed by the 1st revision, published by the Special Water Secretariat in 2017 [3]. Despite the great number of the protected areas in Greek river basins and the efforts made for improving their ecological status in the frame of the implementation of WFD, there are still water bodies threatened from insufficient operation of environmental legislation and ad-hoc management practices [4,5]

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