Evaluation of Bacteriological Parameters of Water Quality in The Bouregreg Estuary Along the Moroccan Atlantic Coast

Abstract

On the Morrocan Atlantic coast, the Bouregreg estuary was submitted to many anthropic effects. After the dam Sidi Mohammed ben Abdellah was built in 1974, the flow became almost null. The waters of the estuary are meant for recreational activities, fishing, but at the same time they receive water collecting domestic and industrial wastewater. The waste in old landfills was not treated and leaked into the river water. The matter gets worse with the action of tides which make it difficult to escape the pollution load (physicochemical, bacteriological, heavy metals, etc.). The main objective of this study is to monitor the bacteriological quality of the surface waters from Bouregreg estuary (Moroccan Atlantic coast). The bacteriological parameters were determined upstream (S1, S2 and S3) and downstream (S4, S5 and S6) of the Bouregreg estuary. The parameters studied are fecal coliform (FC), fecal streptococci (FS), Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The evaluation of the bacterial contamination of the studied water samples shows that the rate of contamination by fecal coliforms is very high in station S3 compared to other stations. This is explained by the emplacement of this station which is located next to a main rejection of Oued Akrach. The bacterial loads are maximal in this station: 7 103 CF/100ml for fecal coliforms and 2 103 SF/100ml for fecal streptococci. The ratio values (CF/SF) for the different stations show that the fecal pollution observed at the studied estuary is of mixed origin with human dominance. The search for pathogenic bacteria namely Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, was negative for all the studied samples