Water Quality Assessment in a Less Anthropogenic Forest Stream in the Centre Region of Cameroon

Résumé fourni par la source

A study was carried out in a less anthropogenic forest stream, the Abouda stream, an affluent of Nga stream in the Mefou watershed, to evaluate the health status of this lotic hydrosystem.Physico-chemical analysis showed that the water is slightly acidic, well oxygenated and poor in suspended solids, conditions which are favourable for a better development of benthic macroinvertebrates.Significant differences of dissolved oxygen, ammonium and phosphates were recorded.Benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled using the multi-habitat approach and the biological results revealed a total of 1951 individuals belonging to 5 phyla, 6 classes, 15 orders, 74 families, and 79 species.Most of the organisms sampled belonged to the phylum of Arthropoda, the class of Insecta and the order of Hemiptera.The Hierarchical Ascending Classification (HAC) showed a high similarity between stations Abouda 1 (A1) and Abouda 3 (A3).Furthermore, the Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), which gives the level of affinity between physico-chemical and biological variables, divided the stations between groups according to their affinities.The diversity index of Shannon and Weaver and the equitability index of Piélou showed that, stations A2 and A3 are more diversified and therefore favourable to a better development of benthic macroinvertebrates.This high diversity is confirmed by S rensen s similarity coefficient whose values are above 60 % indicated a high resemblance between stations A2 and A3.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.