The Application of Benthic Diatoms in Water Quality Assessment in Lepenci River Basin, Kosovo

Abstract

During the study on the assessment of ecological status of the Lepenci river basin, epilithic diatoms were used. Via this methodology, the authors aimed to standardization the ecological assessment methodology and gradually make it applicable for all river basins of Kosovo. The authors relied on a hypothesis that the epilithic diatom communities can serve as a reliable ecological tool to evaluate the quality of flowing waters in Kosovo. Thirteen water quality indices (IBD, IPS, IDG, DESCY, SLA, IDSE, IDAP, EPID, CEE, WAT, TDI, IDP and SHE) were measured in eight sample-points. From the conducted qualitative analysis, the obtained results showed that the water quality varies from upper parts of the basin (SP1, SP2, SP3 & SP4) characterized with higher water quality towards the lower parts (SP5, SP6 & SP7) where water quality was of the 2nd class and finally in Hani i Elezit (SP8) where the index values showed that its water belongs to the 3rd class. The samples were taken in to 8 sampling sites, in river during year (2017), the Navicula viridula species was the most dominant, along with Cocconeis placentula var. lineate and Diatoma vulgaris. In turn, between August and end of September, the following species were dominant ones: Craticula ambigua, Navicula hintzii, Navicula viridula and Rhoicosphenia abbreviata.

Macrophytes as biological indicators of organic pollution in the Lepenci River Basin in Kosovo

“…The best water quality is observed at the monitoring stations in Prevalla (SP-1) and Jezerc (SP-2), where water quality belongs to the first class. At other monitoring stations (SP-3 to SP-8) the water quality varied from the second (II) to the fourth (IV), while according to the 2018 research the Water Quality Index based on heavy metals (Mn > Fe > Pb > Ni > Cd > Zn > Cr > Cu) ranges from 57 to 81, with the mean value of WQI ¼ 68.1250, which ranks the waters of this basin as Fair quality (Bytyçi et al 2018(Bytyçi et al , 2019.…”

“…Based on the existing data, the state of knowledge of the aquatic flora in Kosovo is poor and the number of publications on this topic is small. In recent years, information on the ecological status of river basin Lepenci in Kosovo has been complemented from research by Bytyçi et al (2019). According to this research, in Lepenci River Basin 139 diatom algae species are recorded, and different diatomic indices (IBD, IPS, IDG, Descy, Sla, IDSE, IDAP, EPID, CEE, WAT, TDI, IDP and SHE) are calculated to classify water quality.…”

Penilaian Kualitas Air Hulu Sungai Bedadung Kabupaten Jember Berdasarkan Trophic Diatom Index

“…Oleh karena itu dalam upaya mengatasi kelemahan tersebut, penilaian kualitas air sungai dapat dilakukan dengan menggunakan parameter biologi yang terbukti dapat mengevaluasi perubahan lingkungan dengan lebih baik karena komunitas biota perairan dapat merekam perubahan yang terjadi di habitatnya dalam kurun waktu tertentu. Sekelompok biota yang dapat digunakan untuk menilai kualitas air sungai adalah diatom epilitik (Bytyqi et al, 2019).…”

The Relationship of Water Quality to Epipelic Diatom Assemblages in Cebong Lake, Dieng Indonesia

“…In the water quality monitoring program diatoms had been used as bioindicators due to their quick response to the environmental changes [25,[36][37][38][39], their correlated with the pollutant [32]. The advantages of using diatoms as a bioindicator for water quality, reflected the water quality and integrated effect of different stress, whereas physico-chemical parameter only indicated the water quality when the samples were taken and measured.…”

“…Secondly, they provide a direct impact on the changes of ecological condition, and thirdly, provide quick, and relatively easy to apply water quality assessment [40]. Furthermore, the application for water quality assessment had developed [37]. Since 1970 some kind of multivariate analysis had been developed to determine the relationship between the diatoms and environmental variables [22,41], or paleoreconstruction analysis [21,[42][43][44].…”