TITLE:
Eutrophication Levels through San Pedro-Mezquital River Basin
AUTHORS:
María Elena Pérez López, Maria Guadalupe Sanchez-Martinez, Maria Guadalupe Vicencio de la Rosa, Margarita Teutli Leon
KEYWORDS:
Eutrophication; Pollutants; River Basin; River Watersheds
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.4 No.11A,
November
29,
2013
ABSTRACT: This paper presents an eutrophication
diagnosis for the San Pedro-Mezquital basin at Mexico; procedure
accounted to set up 10 sampling
points distributed along the river pathway, sample collection was done at two
extreme conditions: rainy season and dry season. Five parameters were analyzed
in this work: pH, % Dissolved Oxygen, reactive phosphorus, and nitrogen species
as nitrate and ammonia compounds. Obtained concentrations were statistically
analyzed to establish if there were significant differences among sites and
between seasons; being the dry season the one with higher nutrient content,
ammonia can be considered statistical significance due to the total values
found for each season. Calculation of the Karydis eutrophication index for each
parameter showed that more damaged sites were those nearby the cities, and most
of the sampled sites belonged to the eutrophic category.