Preliminary assessment of marine water quality in bathing, surfing and fishery areas of arugam bay

Abstract

Assessment of recreational water quality is a useful tool in identifying pollution sources, risks to public health and developing appropriate mitigation measures. Present study was undertaken with the view of assessing marine water quality of Arugam bay beach, identifies pollution sources and trends in water quality variation along the surfing, bathing and fishery areas. Research was carried out monthly for a period of 03 months period from February to April, 2015. Measured average pH ((8.15± 0.1) values are indicated slightly alkaline conditions and pH values gradually increase from fishery site to surfing site due to waste water discharge from nearby hotel area. Turbidity values of bathing site are higher than other sites because of high density of bathers and trampling activities in bathing site. Phosphate concentration gradually decreases along the beach area from fishery site to surfing site whereas nitrate concentration gradually increase from fishery site to bathing site and then decrease from bathing site to surfing site. Total Coliform and Escherichia coli counts were high in bathing site than other 02 sites which may be due to discharges from nearby hotels and high density of bathers. Frequent and long term monitoring is essential to obtain temporal and spatial variation in coastal marine water quality of Arugam bay beach.