EVALUATION OF THE EFFECTS OF ANTHROPOENIC ACTIVITIES AND DOMESTIC WASTE ON SURFACE WATER QUALITY

The microbiological and organic pollutants characteristics of umuosoko stream in ikwuano local government area, Enugu state, Nigeria were carried out. Twenty water samples were collected from four different parts of the river.  The pour plate technique was employed for the isolation of micro-organisms. Colonial morphology, Gram staining and biochemical tests were used for identification and characterization. The statistical analyses used were analysis of variance and standard deviation. The mean total aerobic plate count ranged from 5.30 ± 0.01log10cfu/ml to 5.90 ± 3.0
Log10cfu/ml while the mean coliform count was 5.0 ± 0.50 mpn/100ml to 20.0 ± 4.0 mpn/100ml. The salmonella and shigella and vibrio cholerae mean counts were 0 ± 0.00 log10cfu/ml respectively. The mean fungal count ranged from 2.45 ± 0.02 log10cfu/ml to 2.77 ± 0.20 log10cfu/ml. The microorganisms isolated were escherichia coli, enterobacter species, staphylococcus aureus, proteus species, streptococcus species, bacillus species, pseudomonas aeruginosa, lactobacillus species, saccharomyces species; kluyveromyces ranges species and aspergillus species.
The values of the organic pollutants tested were as follows: ph, 6 to 9, temperature, 29oc to 31oc, colour, and 6tcu to 7tcu, conductivity, 200μs/cm to 330μs/cm, turbidity, 0.01ntu to 0.1ntu, total hardness, 0.2mg/l to 0.4mg/l, total dissolved solid, 360 mg/l to 620mg/l, total suspended solid, 40mg/l to 120mg/l, dissolved oxygen, 4.0mg/l to 5.5mg/l, biochemical oxygen demand, 2.8mg/l - 3.8mg/l, salinity, 0.1ppt to 0.3ppt, nitrate, 21 mg/l to 103mg/l, phosphate, 0.67mg/l to 1.52mg/l, sulphate, 200mg/l to 260mg/l, was unobjectionable. The microbiological and nitrate results showed that the river water is contaminated and must be treated before consumption.