Effect of Waste Sewage Pollution on Benthic Diversity of Fresh Water Ecosystem

Effect of sewage pollution on the benthic diversity of fresh water ecosystem of western region of U.P., India was carried out between February, 2009 – January, 2010, by investigating the biological environment of the habitats. The faunal species were obtained by sieving the sediment with 0.5mm mesh sieve and physical sorting. A total of ten major taxonomic groupings were recorded. These groupings and their percentage contribution to the total macro-benthic organisms collection are Rotifers (30%), Diptera (17.2%), Cladocera (12.25%), Coleoptera (8.9%), Ostracoda (8.5 %), Hemiptera (8.37%), Oligochaetes (6.8%), Copepoda (6.7%), Trichoptera (0.27 %) and Ephemeroptera (0.23%). Benthic diversity varied from a minimum of 3.11 in June, 2009 to a maximum of 3.23 in February, 2009 therefore this ecosystem can be considered as moderately polluted. Rotifers and Diptera were dominant in this ecosystem may be attributed to their level of pollution tolerance because some species of these groups can tolerate high eutrophic condition of water and easily survive in polluted water. The Mollusc and Plecoptera was totally absent throughout the study period. This suggests that the study area is polluted and Mollusc and Plecoptera can’t tolerate hypoxia and eutrophic condition of aquatic ecosystem. The CO2 was found to absent throughout the study period.