Pollution in the estuary of the Baracoa river, La Habana, Cuba

  • Lisset Susana Cobas Gómez Centro de Investigaciones Pesqueras
  • Eusebio Perigó Instituto de Oceanología
  • Roberto Piñeiro Centro de Investigaciones Pesqueras
  • Regla Duthit Somoza Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais – INPE
Keywords: environmental quality, estuary, river, physic and chemical variables, microbiological variables

Abstract

The environmental quality of the Baracoa river estuary was studied from the physic (temperature and salinity), chemic variables (dissolved oxygen, oxygen biochemical demand (DBO), oxygen chemical demand (DQO), nitrogen cycle, inorganic phosphorus and total phosphorus) and the microbiological variables (total and thermotolerant coliforms and faecal streptococci). The samplings were made on February 2006, May and October 2007. Spatial distribution of the physical and chemical parameters measured suggests that the estuary is dominated by the marine conditions. The salinity and temperature analyses show that in general the characteristics of the estuary could be influenced by the contribution of the river basin drainage. In general, the concentrations of the measured parameters in the Baracoa river estuary, strongly suggest that this area is under influence of human activities on the river basin, due to the low levels of dissolved oxygen and an oxygen average deficit of -1.6 mg/L. nthropogenic actions in this estuary are mainly related to the emission of domestic and farming rejects without suitable treatment. This is visibly associated with the observed values of the total coliforms concentrations as well as the concentration of faecal streptococci, that surpassed reference values from the Cuban norm for water quality, following on bad or doubtful quality levels pointing out negatively measurements made next to the communication channel the estuary and the El Doctor lagoon.

Author Biography

Lisset Susana Cobas Gómez, Centro de Investigaciones Pesqueras
I work in The Fisheries Research Centre from 2001. I have been working in the oceanographic and environmental analysis and their relation with lobster fisheries doing researching trips, it´s according with Geographic Information Systems (GIS ) and statistic methods as tools.
Published
28/04/2011
Section
Papers