ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal, ISSN NO. 2456-1037
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Vol. 07, Issue 01,January 2022 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) 92 ANALYSIS OF PONDS WATER IN RELATION TO THE AQUATIC PLANT
Nusrat Ara, Shahnaz Jamil
Department of Botany, L. N. Mithila University, Darbhanga
Abstract - Water is a vital life support system of our planet but the amount of aquatic resourcesis static. Of the Earth’s total water resources, 97% is in the oceans and is too salty tobe used for drinking, irrigation or industry. The majority of the remaining 3%
isfrozen in ice caps and glaciers or is buried too deeply underground to be utilized.The exploitable volume is only 0.003% of the total, though it is replenished by thehydrological cycle. Not only is freshwater essential to life but it is also a relativelyscarce resource and is likely to become more so with the impacts of global warmingand population growth (Mason, 2002). Aswathanarayana (2001) pointed out that theworld’s population was likely to grow by 3.7 billion from 1990 to 2030 and theassociated water use would increase twice as fast as the population during thiscentury. He mentions that the United Nations Report in 1997 entitled Comprehensiveassessment of the freshwater resources of the world draws a sombre picture of water shortages in the 21st century.
Keywords: Water Resources, Global Warming, Aquatic, Water, Frozen, Hydrological Cycle.
1 INTRODUCTION
Freshwater is one of the scare naturalresources and its conservation is assuminggreater and greater significance due to everincreasing demand of water for drinking, irrigation and aquaculture.
Freshwater bodiesare very essential for the existence ofecosystem contributing immensely in shapingand evolving the biotic and abiotic systems.The fresh water bodies can be classified intotwo categories viz. running water (Lotic) andstanding water (Lentic). Reservoirs, Ponds, Lakes and Swamps come under secondcategory;
these are very useful for differentactivities besides drinking water sources. Pondsand reservoirs containing fresh water are usedfor fish culture, aquaculture, navigation andtransport, recreation, irrigation hydropowergeneration and a host of such other purposes.Over exploitation of these waterbodies due to
civilization have been
causingdeterioration of water quality. It is quiteessential that the natural environment of thewater body should be conducive to the extentthat water should be used for drinking purpose; therefore, besides considering limn logical status, it is essential to monitor the quality ofwater.
As water resource become more limitedand waste discharge becomes increasinglyproblematic, the concept of water reuse isbecoming important (Buckley et al., 2000). Theglobal consumption of water is doubling every 20 yrs, more than twice the rate of humanpopulation growth. According to
the United Nations, more than one billion people already lack access to fresh drinking water. If thecurrent trend persists by 2025 the demand forfresh water is expected to rise by 56% abovethe amount of water that is currently available.Ponds are small (1.00 m2 to about 5.00ha), man-made or natural shallow water bodieswhich permanently or temporarily hold water.
They are numerous, typically outnumberinglarger lakes by a ratio of about 100.00 to 1.00 (Oertli et al., 2005), and occur in virtually allterrestrial environments, from polar deserts totropical rainforests. Ponds are vital for a widerange of rare and endangered species. Incountries where data are available, highconcentrations of Red Data Book species arealways found in ponds.
Rare species are notonly associated with the wet areas of ponds, but with the semi- aquatic margins.Pond ecology is best described as theinteraction of the life in pond with theenvironment that exists there. A shallow, nutrient-rich pond exposed to sunlight with littlewater flowing through it will be teeming withalgae and aquatic plants. It may have very littleanimal life present because of low oxygenlevels. In contrast, a newly created, deep,spring-fed pond may have little life of any kindin it because of low temperatures and lack offood supply.
Essential for the conservation ofpond biodiversity is a good knowledge of itsthreats. Land use practices in the surroundingsof ponds may, to an
ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal, ISSN NO. 2456-1037
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Vol. 07, Issue 01,January 2022 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) 93 important extent, affectpond
characteristics through a diversity ofprocesses that play at the scale of the pondcatchment (e.g. nutrient loading, increasederosion, pesticide contamination).
Aquatic life is influenced directly orindirectly by the physical, chemical andbiological factors. Fluctuation in any one of thefactors may create an adverse environment tothe organisms, affecting their growth and lifephenomena. All the hydro biologists have giventheir attention towards it. The physico-chemical characteristics of any aquatic ecosystem andthe nature and distribution of its biota aredirectly related to and influenced by each otherand controlled by a multiplicity of naturalregulatory mechanisms.
However, because ofmen’s exploitation of the water resources, thenormal dynamic balance in the aquaticecosystem is continuously disturbed, and oftenresults in each dramatic response as depletionof fauna and flora, fish kill, change in physicochemicalcharacteristics etc.
Artificial changeswhich lead to such ecological responses arereferred to as pollution and pollution stagemay reach a stage when these valuable aquaticresources are no longer safe for human use.
2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Utilization of aquatic macrophytes for water quality monitoring and indication hasbeen developed and extensively studied in the British Isles and the Europeancontinent over the past two decades (Lange & Zon, 1973; Klosowski, 1985; Newbold & Holmes, 1987; Lovett et ah, 1994). Studies on rivers Whitt on (1979) in his review on plants as indicators of river water quality gave acritical evaluation of population changes in aquatic vascular plants to indicate long-termchanges in water quality. The indication of river pollution as assessed bymacrophytes was studied in the Moosach River in Germany (Kohler et al., 1973); extensively in England (Haslam, 1982; Demars & Harper, 1998); in Irish rivers (Caffeiy, 1985; 1987) and in the Potomac River in USA (Jones, 1990).
Holmes et ah,(1998) made a revised classification for British rivers based on their aquatic plantcommunities. Haslam (1987) reported the use of macrophytes
for the assessment ofsources of watercourse pollution in Italy and Mediterranean France.
Aquaticmacrophytes as indicators of heavy metal pollution in River Leine, Germany were studied by Abo-Rady (1980). Correlations between vegetation and water quality inrivers of Central Europe using statistical procedures was reported by Wiegleb (1981)while Schneider & Melzer (2003) studied the trophic index of macrophytes as a toolfor indicating the trophic status of running waters.
2.1 Studies on Streams
Aquatic macrophyte communities as bioindicators of nutrient enrichment in streamwaters have been studied in Florida (Canfield & Hoyer, 1988); in the upper Rhineplain, Alsace (Carbiener et ah, 1990); in France (Robach et ah, 1996;
Thiebaut & Muller, 1999) and in Bavaria (Schorer et al., 2000). Grasmucketal, (1995) studied the use of multivariate analysis for assessment of bioindicator capacity ofmacrophytes in France.
Thiebaut et al. (2002) also tested the pertinence of differentapproaches for assessing the water quality of streams through macrophytecommunities.
Following the lead of European botanists, surveys in North Americahave increasingly attempted to identify patterns of plant community response tohuman- related alteration of streams (Small etal., 1996).
2.2 Studies on Ponds
The use of macrophytes as indicators of the water quality in pond waters has receivedvery little attention possibly because there is not much aesthetic or recreational useassociated with ponds for Man. in the developed countries. There are only few studiesthat relate plant growth directly to water quality. Mulligan et al. (1976) studied thestriking effect of nitrogen and phosphorus enrichment on macrophytes inexperimental ponds in NewYork while Roman et al. (2001) showed the possibility ofusing aquatic plants for assessment of pond water quality in USA. Duckweeds (Lemna minor) were studied as a tool for bioassay of pond water richness (Linton & Goulder, 1998) while Elster et al. (1995) found root
ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal, ISSN NO. 2456-1037
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Vol. 07, Issue 01,January 2022 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) 94 length of duckweeds to beindicative of
water trophic status.
Other studies relating plants to environmental factors were done by Kunii (1991) in irrigation ponds around Lake Shinji, Japan and by Rea et al. (1998) in asmall US pond. Shimoda (1984) made an attempt to utilize aquatic vegetation aspond water quality indicators only on the basis of plant species present in nonpollutedand highly eutrophic ponds in Japan.
2.3 The Aquatic Plant and their Relation of Ponds Water: The Indian Scenario
Limnological work on Indian aquatic resources and the status of research has been thoroughly reviewed (Gulati &
Wurtz-Schulz, 1980; Michael, 1980;
Gopal & Zutshi, 1998).
2.4 Aquatic Plants
Studies on aquatic plants of ponds are scattered and conducted over short- termperiods. The studies were done on a few isolated components like taxonomy and distribution (Kachroo, 1959;
Majumdar, 1965; Deb, 1976; Varshney &
Singh, 1976; Cook, 1996); seasonal changes (Ganapati, 1941; Nasar & Dutta Munshi, 1974; & Dewanji, Dewanji et al.
1993; Mukhopadhyay 2002); ecology and management a spects (Gopal, 1990;
Gupta, 2001). These studies were generally taken up because of theirweedy nature and their ability to become a nuisance and restrict proper use of waterbodies. However, since the eighties, the nutrient removal potential of these plants inlakes have also received great attention (Kaul et al., 1980; Kulshreshtha and Gopal, 1982; Tripathi et al., 1990;
1991).
2.5 Water Quality
Earlier most limnological studies on pond waters were done to obtain baseline information of plankton communities over a long period (Ganapati, 1943, Rao, 1955;
Zafar, 1964; Munawar, 1970; Rao, 1977;
Jana, 1973; Jana et al., 1980; Jana &
Kundu, 1993; Nasar & Kaur, 1982). This information about water chemistry andphytoplankton productivity was then chiefly utilized for fish farming (Sreenivasan, 1964; Sreenivasan, 1972).
With a growing concern for the water quality of our freshwater resources overthe years, research efforts have now being directed towards the mounting pollutionlevels in rivers and large lakes of India. Studies in recent years have focused on waterquality monitoring of major Indian rivers for assessing pollution levels (Trivedy, 1990). The Government of India has launched a Ganga Action Plan in 1985(Anonymous, 1985) for the assessment of physico-chemical characteristics of water quality (Krishnamurthy et al, 1991) while Unni (1997) evaluated the condition of the Narmada River. Jana (1998) published a review on limnological data of more than 60 Indianlakes. Detailed investigations on several lakes from different geographic areas withinIndia have also been published during the last decade that cover all aspects of waterchemistry (Ando, 1996). The Ministry of Environment and Forests, which identified11 lakes for special attention from the Government, launched a National LakeConservation Plan, in 1997.
3 BIOLOGICAL STUDIES
Biological studies are now gaining momentum and are being increasingly employedin monitoring the water quality of Indian rivers as well. The Central Pollution ControlBoard, New Delhi has developed, with the help of the Dutch Government (de Kruijfet al., 1992), a biomonitoring programme for River Yamuna and compared severalchemical and biological approaches for the assessment of water quality (Zwart, 1991).
Gopal & Sah (1993) examined bio monitoring potential of diatoms for water pollutionof River Yamuna while Siva Ramakrishnan et al. (1996) analyzed water qualitymonitoring data for the entire Kaveri river system using benthic macro invertebrates. In contrast, macrophyte based work has received very little attention (Varshney, 1981) although there have been some reviews published by Indianworkers on management of our fresh water resources with reference to aquaticmacrophytes (Pandit, 1984; Gopal
& Chamanlal, 1991; Dewanji & Matai, 2000). Thus, comprehensive studies on responses of plant species or communities to changesin water quality in ponds are much needed in our country to focus on
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Vol. 07, Issue 01,January 2022 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) 95 the condition ofnumerous small ponds
that are used extensively by the people.
4 CONCLUSION
In an attempt to explore the potential of aquatic plants for possible indication of waterquality, we realized that there were no relevant benchmark data or models to emulateand hence had to start off from practically no where! However, a meticulous andsincere effort has been devoted to collection of parametric data of both water andplants from two ponds with principally two characteristics in mind - collection ofperiodic and regular data and that unknown factors be kept at a minimum.Ponds are one of the major source water in the rural India. They can contain water throughout theyear or they can be seasonal, holding water for only part of the year. Many plants and animals live in thewater or at the water’s edge or use ponds at a stage of their life cycle also provide a source of water for livestock.
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