Water Quality Assessment of Irrigation and Drainage Systems on the Basis of Phytoplankton Analysis

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Aswan University, Aswan 81528, Egypt

Abstract

Water systems in Upper Egypt appear to be vulnerable for Egyptians uses and abuses. Recognition of the
ever increasing pressure on those resources and the inevitable conflicts of water utility always require
promotion of strategies for better environmental management of this valuable resource. WHO has
reported that about 40 thousand people worldwide are dying daily due to consumption of polluted water.
Hence, it was thought imperative to assess the water quality and pollution status of aquatic habitats in
Upper Egypt. Irrigation and drainage canals have an important role in controlling the water balance, for
irrigation of agricultural lands and discharge from the cultivated soils. They may be subjected to
anthropogenic impact that lead to perceptible changes in their regime particularly in the drainage canals.
In such habitats, planktonic algae are sensitive to the dramatic fluctuations of water quality, and are
therefore could be regarded as predictors for monitoring environmental conditions. Obvious differences
were observed between the irrigation and drainage canals in water quality and phytoplankton abundance
as well as its community structure. For instance, the species diversities in the irrigation canals were
relatively higher than those in the drainage canals. Furthermore, some euglenoid and cyanoprokaryotic
phytoplankton appeared in the drainage canals and completely disappeared in the irrigation canals. These
observations provide evidence for possible use of phytoplankton to assess water quality.

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