Monitoring of Physico-Chemical and Microbiological Quality of Taghazout Seawater (Southwest of Morocco): Impact of the New Tourist Resort “Taghazout Bay”

Abstract

The marine environment plays a major socioeconomic role in the Agadir region (south-west Morocco). This area, which hosts important fishery resources, is currently not spared from the pollutants produced in the course of agricultural, domestic, industrial and tourist development. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of the Taghazout bay tourist resort on the bacteriological and physicochemical quality of the coastal waters of Taghazout. The seawater samples were collected between March 2016 and March 2018 at three sampling sites (S1, S2 and S3) in order to monitor the concentrations of fecal coliforms (FC), fecal streptococci (FS) and total germs (TG). The results of physicochemical parameters show seasonal fluctuations influenced by climatic factors. The spatio-temporal monitoring of the bacteriological parameters shows that the average total germ count is 127.05 CFU/100 ml, 39.61 CFU/100 ml for fecal coliforms and 15.21 CFU/100 ml for fecal streptococci. The values of FC80, FC95 and FS90 do not exceed the guide values of the Moroccan standards. This classifies the Taghazout beach in category A (good quality of bathing water). The monitoring analysis recorded by the Pearson correlation test between the environmental parameters and the level of fecal bacteria showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the FC concentrations and rainfall; the FS concentrations showed significant positive correlations with all the environmental parameters while the TG concentrations indicate no correlation with them. The fecal contamination parameters should be routinely monitored for improving the environmental conditions of coastal cities. This must be the case for the Taghazout coastline where a regular monitoring program must be established to evaluate the impact of the new tourist resort "Taghazout bay" on the environmental quality of this ecosystem.

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