Seminar of R. Arthur James
Water can be obtained from a number of sources including streams, lakes, ponds, rain, springs, groundwaters, and rivers. Rivers are playing a major role in the provision of important freshwater resources worldwide. Normally, the water required for domestic consumption should have a high degree of purity and it should be free from suspended and dissolved particles, heavy metals, bacteria and others. Water from most sources is not suitable for immediate consumption without some sort of treatment. We used surface sediments to determine the sediment chemistry and environmental enrichment factors for pollution monitoring, because they provide a long term record and more reliable information about the hydrology and chemistry of rivers. We found heavy metal concentrations and bacterial analysis of total viable counts (TVC), total coliform counts (TC), total streptococci counts (TS) and two other different types of pathogenic bacteria which are indicator organisms of pollution studies. From this study, pathogenic pollution indices (PI – 6.66 to 14.06) and antibiotic resistance indices (ARI – 0.29 to 0.34) demonstrate that the environment is characterized by unhygienic condition. Human activities such as agriculture, deforestation, grazing, and dam construction across the river catchment were causing most of the measured disturbances.
LASIR meeting room, basement building C5