World Journal of
Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences

COMPILATION OF THE PHOSPHATE CONTENT OF THE UPPER AND LOWER ZONES OF A WETLAND ECOSYSTEM

Divya S. Rajan*

ABSTRACT

Wetlands have always been at one time or other a community dumping site of waste of industrial commercial agricultural, municipal or domestic origin and hence threatened by accelerated sedimentation. Kerala notwithstanding its limited geographical extent supports a rich diversity of wetland ecosystems. Ashtamudi lake in Kollam district is the second largest estuary backwater complex in Kerala next only to Vembanad lake. It is either being polluted, drained or filled up to give way for development .The encroachment ,mining and reclamation in many locations leads to loss of biodiversity as well as changes in the ecosystem functioning. An attempt was thus made in the present study to estimate the variations of phosphate content in the upper and lower extremes of water of the Thekkumbhagam creek of Ashtamudi estuary. The study recorded a maximum PO4.P value during the monsoon and a minimum during the pre-monsoon period. Higher concentration of PO4.P during monsoon season might have been due to the large inputs of domestic sewages, fertilizers from the adjacent agricultural lands, poultry waste, prawn processing wastes, slaughter wastes, hospital wastes etc. The high PO4.Pconcentration is an important feature associated with sewage and industrial pollution in this creek and hence PO4.P concentration could be taken as an index to identify the extent of pollution in this study area. This contribution attempts to evaluate the variations in phosphate phosphorous content along with reminding the need for the conservation of this wetland.

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