Physicochemical and Bacteriological Water Quality Across Different Forms of Land Use on the Mahafaly Plateau, Madagascar

Abstract

Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com".Abstract The sub-arid southwest of Madagascar is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots combined with exceptional poverty and high risk of further temperature increase that will aggravate the living and health conditions of the people. As bases for future water management, we measured the physicochemical and microbiological quality of water sources across different forms of land use in the protected Tsimanampetsotsa National Park, and the agricultural and pastoral regions of the Mahafaly plateau on limestone and the coastal plain on sand during the dry and wet season of 2012-2013. We investigated spatial and seasonal variation of water characteristics and their relationships with bacterial contamination. Portable meters were used for the physicochemical measures. The compact dry method was used for microbial analyses. The pH was neutral to slightly alkaline and within the permissible limits of WHO and Malagasy standards. Electric conductivity (EC) and total dissolved solids (TDS) were very high and above the permissible limits in the coastal plain, moderately high in the park and low on the plateau. The concentrations of nitrogen components (NH 4 , NO 3 and NO 2 ) were high in the rainy season, with the highest concentrations in wells. Phosphate concentration was high throughout the study area. Total coliforms, Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp. and Vibrio spp. were present through-Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (out the study area year-round, representing a serious health hazard. Their concentrations were not correlated with any physicochemical characteristics in any systematic fashion that would allow to use the physicochemical characteristics as proxy for microbial contamination. Poor sanitary conditions are the principal causes of the water contamination that could be reduced substantially by simple behavioural changes of the local human population. The finding that water temperature in wells of the plateau and to a lesser extent of the coastal plain increases during the hot wet season indicates a substantial contribution of surface rather than subterranean water to the water available for human and livestock consumption. This limits the options for future increase of water consumption by people, livestock and agriculture in...

Water quality and biotic interaction of two cavefish species: Typhleotris madagascariensis Petit, 1933 and Typhleotris mararybe Sparks & Chakrabarty, 2012, in the Mahafaly Plateau groundwater system, Madagascar

“…Probably because of the high concentration of phosphorus (up to 53.20 mg/l), different species of alga covered large surface areas of some of the sinkholes. The erosion of phosphate from rocks in the study area seem to be the main origin of this phosphate contamination (Rasoloariniaina et al 2015).…”

“…Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate and iron analyses were performed using specific reagents and the HI83205 photometer of Hanna. More details on the analytical methods are provided by Rasoloariniaina et al (2015).…”

“…Electrical conductivity is an index of the total ionic content of water, and therefore indicates salinity (Ogbeibu and Victor 1995). EC of freshwater varies between 50 to 1500 µS/cm (Boyd 1979) and seawater has a conductivity around 52,000 µS/cm (Guyot 2002, Rasoloariniaina et al 2015. Stone and Thomforde (2004) recommended the suitable range for freshwater species of 100-2000 µS/cm.…”

Physico-Chemical Analysis, Classification of Ground Water, and Impact of Water Quality on the Health of People in Khushab City, Pakistan

“…Consumption of contaminated water is a serious cause of health issues in developing countries (Rasoloariniaina et al, 2015). Human beings are affected and infected by highly impure water.…”

Distribution, biomass and local importance of tamarind trees in south-western Madagascar

“…The usage of tamarind differs between the coast and the plateau, especially for juice production, charcoal production, as well as medicinal use. Juice production in the littoral is rarely practised because of the poor water quality and the high salinity content in the ground water (Rasoloariniaina et al, 2014). Charcoal production is less intensive on the plateau compared to the littoral, which is probably the result of environmental education efforts from NGOs in this region.…”