Around the world, there is an increasing trend in areas of land, surface waters and groundwater affected by contamination from industrial, military and agricultural activities due to either ignorance, lack of vision, or carelessness. In the last three decades a special interest in the world is aroused by the potential of using the biological methods in the waste water treatment. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) constitutes an important part of an aquatic ecosystem. Water hyacinth as a very promising plant with tremendous application in wastewater treatment is already proved. Water hyacinth is used to treat waste water from dairies, tanneries, sugar factories, pulp and paper industries, palm oil mills, distilleries, etc. All the efforts of scientists and technocrats all over the world to eliminate these weeds by chemical and biological means have met with little success. The water hyacinth have been found to have potential for use as phytoremediation, paper, organic fertilizer, biogas production, human food, fiber, animal fodder. @ JASEM The fast technological and industrial development, and tumultuous demographic growth and rapid urbanization, especially in the last two decades, are confronting the mankind with four large problems: water, food, energy and environment. The water problem is particularly pronounced, because it is implicitly present in other three problems, that is in the food and energy production which depend primarily on the water and the key environmental problems are water quality protection and water damage control.

Tajan River is among the most significant rivers of the Caspian Sea water basin. In this study, the concentration of Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Cd, and Zn were determined in brain, heart, liver, gill, bile, and muscle of Rutilus frisii kutum which has great economic value in the Mazandaran state. Trace element levels in fish samples were analyzed by means of atomic absorption spectrometry. Nearly all non-essential metals levels (Ni, Pb, Cd) detected in tissues were higher than limits for fish proposed by FAO/WHO, EU, and TFC. Generally, non-essential metals (Ni, Pb) were so much higher in muscle than the essential metals (Cu, Zn, and Mn) except Fe, which was higher than other metals in nearly all parts, except in gills. Fe distribution pattern in tissues was in order of heart>brain>liver>muscle>bile>gill. Distribution patterns of metal concentrations in the muscle of fish as a main edible part followed the sequence: Fe>Pb>Ni>Cu>Mn>Zn>Cd.

The influence of physicochemical properties of Haraz river on its zooplankton composition and abundance were investigated at three sites for one year between August 2009 and July 2010. The present study records for the first time the aspects of zooplankton diversity and composition in relation to the physicochemical environment of the Haraz river. Only three groups of zooplankton were found: Rotifera with eighteen genera; Cladocera with nine and Copepoda with six genera. Rotifera was the predominant group (64.89%), followed by Cladocera (19.62%) and Copepoda (15.32%). Upstream, the abundance was 805 individuals/m3, while it varied from 922 to 1126 ind/m3 downstream. Alkaline pH and nutrients were the main environmental factors which affected zooplankton abundance in the river. Site variation in dominance, diversity, evenness and richness were calculated. The study revealed that the presence of certain species, such as Lepadella sp., Mesocyclops sp., Polyarthra sp. and Brachionus sp. is considered to be a biological indicator for eutrophication. The calculated Jack1 values of sites 1 to 3 were 7.624, 16.426 and 19.221, respectively. The Shannon-Wiever species diversity index (H’) values were also different for all the three sites viz., site 1 (1.992), site 2 (1.21) and site 3 (2.48). Simpson’s dominance index (H) value was highest at site 1 (0.692), indicating maximum dominance, whereas at site 3 dominance was the lowest (0.227) and diversity was the highest. Overall, our results showed that changes in the water quality of the river Haraz have considerable effects on the composition of zooplankton assemblages that can potentially affect the functioning of these ecosystems

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This study is designed to evaluate the antioxidant and antihaemolytic activities of the hydroalcoholic extracts of Allium scabriscapum aerial parts and bulbs by employing eight in vitro assay systems. In 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl radical scavenging assay, both the extracts show moderate scavenging activity. The reducing power ability of extracts increased with increasing in the samples concentrations. IC 50 for metal chelating activity of aerial parts and bulbs extracts were 894.6 ± 31.29 and 746.2 ± 26.11 µg mL −1 , respectively. The aerial part extracts show better nitric oxide and hydrogen peroxide scavenging activities than the bulb. Extracts exhibited good antioxidant activity in linoleic acid emulsion system and were comparable to vitamin C (p > 0.05). Aerial parts extract showed better antihemolytic activity against cumene hydroperoxide and hydrogen peroxide-induced hemolysis. Among the extracts A. scabriscapum, aerial parts had higher phenolic and flavonoid contents.