Monitoring water quality and plankton distribution in the River Nile around El-Maadi area in Egypt during 2018

Rashad, Sayed; Abdul Moneem, Muhammad; A. El-Chaghaby, Ghadir; F. Abdel-Kader, Shereen

doi:10.21608/ejabf.2019.63621

Monitoring water quality and plankton distribution in the River Nile around El-Maadi area in Egypt during 2018

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

10.21608/ejabf.2019.63621

Abstract

In the present study, water quality parameters and planktons distribution were monitored monthly during the year 2018 within a segment of the Nile around El-Maadi area in Cairo, Egypt. The results indicated a temperature variation ranging from 16.8°C in January to 29.4°C in July. The pH of water recorded a value around 8.2 all over the study period. Total dissolved solids were highest in January (346.5mg/l) whereas, the lowest value was obtained in July (240.3mg/l). The water electric conductivity ranged from 528 to 365 µS/cm. Very little variations were noticed for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate concentrations with maximum values in November being 0.40, 0.06 and 0.605 mg/l, respectively. The calcium concentrations ranged from 27.0 to 37.2 mg/l, magnesium concentrations were in the range from 10.32 to 16.4 mg/l, whereas iron concentrations varied from 0.09 to 0.325 mg/l and manganese concentrations range was 0.0001 to 0.192 mg/l. The results indicated that the total algae count was highest during winter season followed by autumn then spring and summer. The results showed that during winter season the count of blue green algae was maximum (385 cell/ml) and also the number of diatoms was highest in winter. Pearson’s correlation analysis revealed positive correlation for the total number of algae and turbidity, total dissolved solids (TDS), electroconductivity (EC) and calcium (Ca) in water. Whereas, there was a strong negative correlation for the total algae count and water temperature.

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