Evaluation of lentic ecosystems from Bucharest City

Abstract: Bucharest is the capital city and also one of the largest cities in Romania. It disposes of natural and artificial lakes, arranged for different leisure activities and some of them even for bathing. Monitoring and maintaining the quality of lentic ecosystems is important from both an economical and environmental point of view. Several lake water samples were collected from Bucharest city area. The water quality of these lakes was evaluated using, for the first time, fluorescence spectroscopy together with standard indicators (conductivity and pH, oxygen indicators, like dissolved oxygen -DO and chemical oxygen demand -COD and nutrients, specifically nitrates and nitrites). The anthropic influence on the lentic ecosystems was evidenced by the presence of high quantities of ammonia, a clear sign of uncontrolled wastewater spills from the residential settlements on the lake borders. From the fluorescence measurements, various indices were calculated as ratio between regions of the fluorescence maps. A good correlation was found between some of these indices and the standard parameters, thus suggesting that fluorescence spectroscopy might be a potential tool in the monitoring of the lake water quality