Microbial Pollution Indicators in the Cauvery River, Southern India
The River Cauvery is one of the largest rivers of the Indian subcontinent. It originates from the Brahmagiri range of the Western Ghats, and flows for about 800 km west to east before debauching at the Bay of Bengal. Because of its importance in the India
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Microbial Pollution Indicators in the Cauvery River, Southern India S. Vignesh, K. Muthukumar, M. Santhosh Gokul, and R.A. James
Abstract The River Cauvery is one of the largest rivers of the Indian subcontinent. It originates from the Brahmagiri range of the Western Ghats, and flows for about 800 km west to east before debauching at the Bay of Bengal. Because of its importance in the Indian culture and dense population residing at its banks, it faces several forced and unforced human activities. This river system of Tamilnadu was studied in detail for the present status of water quality. Water samples were collected from 17 different sites from the Krishnarajasager reservoir up to the estuarine regions. Microbiological analysis was performed during four seasons (2010). Measured parameters include, bacterial analysis; total viable count (TVC), total coliform count (TC), total streptococci count (TS) and six different types of pathogenic bacteria. It is inferred from the study that the total coliforms (TC) were in the magnitude of 103 ml1 for most of the sites, - higher than the permissible limits. The pollution indices (PI) ratio were high in all the seasons and maximum was observed in urban (S6 – 12.5) areas. The monsoon season showed the presence of higher levels of bacterial pollution than other seasons.
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Introduction
The microbiological water quality of a river system is considered to be related to the environmental habitations such as dense human population, urbanization, industrialization, apparent livestock density and land use patterns. In urban and rural areas, the bacteriological quality of freshwater is frequently threatened by contamination with untreated domestic wastewaters (Griesel and Jagals 2002). Drinking water is often drawn from river that usually contains a number of microorganisms that in turn are pathogenic for humans. It becomes increasingly difficult to treat and
S. Vignesh • K. Muthukumar • M.S. Gokul • R.A. James (*) Department of Marine Science, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli 620 024, India e-mail: [email protected] Mu. Ramkumar (ed.), On a Sustainable Future of the Earth’s Natural Resources, Springer Earth System Sciences, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-32917-3_20, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
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disinfect river water to produce drinking water as the microorganism load increases as a function of population density adjoining river systems (Skrabert al. 2002). Regular visits of human and livestock to surface water systems are common in developing countries, particularly in poor communities where most residents lack access to potable water. As a result, they usually depend on the surface water systems that are often contaminated (Nevondo and Cloete 1999; Paul et al. 2008). In several cases, the extent of faecal pollution exceed recommended limits for water to be used for drinking, recreation, or irrigation of crops eaten raw (Griesel and Jagals 2002). The cattle grazing and manure spreading in agricultural practices contribute to the
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