Performance of biotic indices in comparison to chemical-based Water Quality Index (WQI) in evaluating the water quality of urban river

Abstract

In order to evaluate the water quality of one of the most polluted urban river in Malaysia, the Penchala River, performance of eight biotic indices, Biomonitoring Working Party (BMWP), BMWP, BMWP, Average Score Per Taxon (ASPT), ASPT, BMWP, Family Biotic Index (FBI), and Singapore Biotic Index (SingScore), was compared. The water quality categorization based on these biotic indices was then compared with the categorization of Malaysian Water Quality Index (WQI) derived from measurements of six water physicochemical parameters (pH, BOD, COD, NH-N, DO, and TSS). The river was divided into four sections: upstream section (recreational area), middle stream 1 (residential area), middle stream 2 (commercial area), and downstream. Abundance and diversity of the macroinvertebrates were the highest in the upstream section (407 individual and H' = 1.56, respectively), followed by the middle stream 1 (356 individual and H' = 0.82). The least abundance was recorded in the downstream section (214 individual). Among all biotic indices, BMWP was the most reliable in evaluating the water quality of this urban river as their classifications were comparable to the WQI. BMWPs in this study have strong relationships with dissolved oxygen (DO) content. Our results demonstrated that the biotic indices were more sensitive towards organic pollution than the WQI. BMWP indices especially BMWP were the most reliable and could be adopted along with the WQI for assessment of water quality in urban rivers.

Benthic Macroinvertebrates as Ecological Indicators: Their Sensitivity to the Water Quality and Human Disturbances in a Tropical River

“…The freshwater macroinvertebrate taxa vary in response to organic pollution; and thus, their diversity and composition have been used to make inferences about pollution loads (Kenney et al, 2009;Wan Abdul Ghani et al, 2018;Tampo et al, 2020). Generally, in natural pristine rivers, high abundances and richness of species could be found (Barbour et al, 1996(Barbour et al, , 1999.…”

Determination of the ecological water quality in the Orienco stream using benthic macroinvertebrates in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon

“…In the case of the COD levels, the Student's test results indicated that measured levels were significantly lower ( t > 10, df = 4, p < 0.0005) than the reference COD of 40.00 ± 00 mg/L across all 17 SPs, except SP5 with no significant differences ( t < 1, df = 4, p > 1.00) (Supporting Information: Table ). Interestingly, the lower BOD and COD levels indicated reduced aerobic and oxidation activities in watercourses (Cota et al, 2002; Wan Abdul Ghani et al, 2018), which could be considered indicative of good water quality. The ANOVA results among all SPs showed highly significant differences among the measured COD levels ( F 16,34 = 68.75, p < 2.20 × 10 −16 ).…”

“…In contrast, the Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP) index was developed to determine the degree of pollution in aquatic systems (Herman & Nejadhashemi, 2015; Roldán, 2003). The BMWP index relates the presence of pollution‐tolerant macroinvertebrates, identified at the family level, to the water‐quality parameters, and organic or inorganic pollutants (Herman & Nejadhashemi, 2015; Roldán, 2003; Wan Abdul Ghani et al, 2018). Examples of organic pollutants associated with degraded aquatic environments as determined by tolerant macroinvertebrates include hospital sewage, domestic and animal waste (e.g., tilapia farms), agriculture residues, and algae detritus (Cabrera et al, 2021; Cota et al, 2002; Roche et al, 2010).…”

Influência Da Urbanização Na Qualidade Da Água Do Rio Branco E Afluentes No Município De Boa Vista, Roraima, Amazônia Brasileira

“…Nosso estudo também apontou distintos grupos que se caracterizam pelas condições da qualidade físico-química e microbiológica da água, onde o grupo com pontos fora da área urbana (G1) assinalaram relações diretas com baixa DBO5,20, CE, STD, NO3, Cle COL TERM (COMPANHIA DE TECNOLOGIA DE SANEAMENTO AMBIENTAL, 2006;MENEZES et al, 2016;DANELUZZI;GONÇALVES;FREITAS, 2018;OLIVEIRA;OLIVEIRA;LIMA, 2018). Esta é uma característica relatada por outros estudos na Amazônia (VITAL, 2004;MELLO;SANTOS, 2018;PIMENTEL et al 2019), e por estudos internacionais em rios urbanos na China, Japão (HUANG et al, 2010;FENG et al, 2018;WAN ABDUL GHANI et al, 2018), advertindo que altos índices destas variáveis são fortes indicadores de atividades antrópicas urbanas.…”