The study of water quality of Zubra River using bioindication and biotesting
A small Zubra River belongs to the Dnieper river basin. A riverbed of the Zubra River within the city of Lviv is contaminated with household sewage from the sewage network of the district. Bioindication was used to determine the quality of Zubra river water. Besides, phytotesting was also used, in particular we were selecting a sensitive test-object among annual plants, which would indicate by their parameters the level of the Zubra River pollution. Water samples were taken at two stations: sampling place No 1 - from the main riverbed of the Zubra River, which flows out from under the ground and flows through open collector from an intersection of Khutorivka and Ghotkevych Streets and sampling place No 2 - at the turning point of the main riverbed from Khotkevych Street to the village of Zubra. The Zubra River on the section from Khutorivka Street to the forest-park area near the Hnat Hotkevych Street is constantly polluted by the household-fecal drains from the district sewage network. A research of water quality by chemical methods showed that the content of ammonia, nitrates, chlorides in sampling place No 2 is slightly higher than at the origins of the river. An assessment of water quality using an index of species richness by zooplankton and the growth parameters of rape sprouts indicate that complex pollution of the Zubra River water is higher on sampling point No 2. Thus, the index of species richness by zooplankton can be successfully used for bioindication, and winter rape sprouts can be considered a good object for phytotesting of water quality in a reservoir.