Diurnal and Inter-Seasonal Variation of Nutrients in Dhamra Estuary, East Coast of India: Application of Multivariate Statistical Techniques

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Diurnal and Inter-Seasonal Variation of Nutrients in Dhamra Estuary, East Coast of India: Application of Multivariate Statistical Techniques International Journal of ChemTech Research CODEN (USA): IJCRGG, ISSN: 0974-4290, ISSN(Online):2455-9555 Vol.11 No.05, pp 139-148, 2018 Diurnal and inter-seasonal variation of nutrients in Dhamra estuary, East coast of India: Application of multivariate Statistical techniques Satyabrata Das Sharma1*, Rashmi Ranjan Behera1, Asim Amitav Pattanayak1, Chitta Ranjan Panda1 and Lakshman Nayak2 1CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Environment & Sustainability Department, Bhubaneswar, Odisha-751013, India 2Department of Marine Sciences, Berhampur University, Odisha-760007, India Abstract : The research article has focused on intra and inter-seasonal variation of water quality over diurnal and tidal rhythm. Two different seasons were considering for the following study, one from dry period as pre-monsoon and another from the wet period as post- monsoon during the year 2016. The hydro-chemical environmental variables were monitored for 15 variables viz., salinity, pH, water temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, biochemical oxygen demand, suspended solid, nitrite, nitrate, total nitrogen, inorganic phosphate, total phosphate, and silicate. Multivariate statistical analysis was adopted to the data set through person correlation matrix, multi-dimensional scaling, principal component analysis and euclidean distance cluster analysis to know the loading and possible sources of nutrients input to the estuarine water column. The proposed statistical model based on PCA gave a reasonable explanation on the relation between physico-chemical parameters. The PCA extracted five factors in which the first factor attributed to influx of marine water and all the other factors (PC-2 to PC-5) attributed to river run-off during pre-monsoon or dry season. During post-monsoon season or wet period, PCA extracted 4 factors. The first two factors (PC-1 and PC-2) explained positive loading of nutrients attributed to influx of anthropogenic input. It clearly explains nutrients input through riverine system played an active role during post-monsoon or wet season. The PCA-3 and PCA-4 constitute showed less input of nutrients to the estuary. The MDS plot and euclidean distance cluster extracted 3 groups both in dry and wet season by combining 15 environmental variables. All the inorganic-nutrients were clustered in one group while other variables were making a different grouping. This may prove the nutrients are correlated with each other and their sources might be from a common origin of influents and accumulates through riverine discharge. Keywords : Inter seasonal and diurnal variation, nutrients, Dhamra estuary, East coast of India. International Journal of ChemTech Research, 2018,11(05): 139-148. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.20902/IJCTR.2018.110515 Satyabrata Das Sharma et al /International Journal of ChemTech Research, 2018,11(05): 139-148. 140 Introduction Estuaries are major nutrient suppliers to coastal oceans, breeding grounds for marine organisms, a nursery for juveniles and a potential fishery habitat. Water quality of many estuaries around the world has polluted and degraded due to anthropogenically active nutrient inputs 1.The water quality of an estuary is influenced by both natural and manmade activities 2,3. The natural processes viz.tidal cycle, precipitation, weathering and soil erosion. Tidal activities play a basic role in the change of physical and chemical properties of coastal water. Manmade activities like industrial and agricultural activities and human exploitation of water resources. The main sources of organic water pollution are domestic and industrial sewage and animal husbandry4. Rivers and their tributaries receive many contaminants released from industrial, domestic, sewage and agricultural effluents and finally enter to the marine ecosystem which severely affects the water quality5,6. Estuaries are the main entry for nutrients coming from continental drainage to the marine environment7. Dissolved nutrients distribution may vary depending on rainfall, fresh water inflow, tidal incursion and also biological activities. The river water provides high levels of nutrients to the water column which make the estuary more productive for natural habitats 8. Though the nutrients are the basic need for marine biota still its high concentration in estuarine and coastal waters causes several environmental modifications. Unusual supply of nutrients to the coastal body may destroy the ecological balance by eutrophication4. Therefore, quantitative and qualitative coastal monitoring and assessment is very much essential of nutrients inputs to ecological system. Water quality monitoring is essential to control physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water bodies and helps pollution detection. Especially, estuarine water body are facing more risk to contaminants through riverine system. From this point of view, water quality monitoring in many estuaries around the world has been under taken since more than three decades. Since 1990s, extensive monitoring of the coastal waters along the Indian coast has been undertaken by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). CSIR- Institute of minerals and materials technology, Odisha also took an active part for monitoring of coastal water along Odisha and West-Bengal coast, East coast of India since 1992. Though, we were creating a huge data set, but in this chapter we are only concerning inter seasonal and diurnal changes in the water quality of Dhamra estuary.The Dhamra estuary is a tropical estuary on the East coast of India, and its hydrological characteristics are governed by monsoon regime 9. The estuary is a joint stream formed by the convergence of the two rivers i.e. Brahmani and Baitarani located at the south of the town of Chandabali. Brahmani and Baitarani rivers combine together to form Dhamra River before meeting the Bay of Bengal. It is situated on the East coast of India within 860 E 0 1 E and 2 0 2 0 . The location of Dhamra Estuary is near proximity to the mineral belt of Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Dhamra River receives indiscriminate waste discharges mostly agricultural runoff and domestic effluents from two major rivers such as Brahmani and Baitarani. Brahmani River receives effluents from most of the major industries of Rourkela, Angul and Talcher industrial areas of the Odisha state, as a result, the aquatic ecosystem could be exposed to risk10. Dhamra port, the newly constructed port located northern side of the river mouth which is a source of anthropogenic disturbance on the estuarine water quality as well as ecosystem habitat11. The estuary enclosed with Bhitarkanika mangrove forest and Gahirmatha marine sanctuary. Bhitarkanika wildlife sanctuary famous for its estuarine crocodiles and Gahirmatha marine sanctuary, which is the world s most important nesting beach for Olive Ridley sea turtles on the Orissa coast of Bay of Bengal12. Both are of international repute being on environmentally sensitive area13. Figure.1. Map of study area Satyabrata Das Sharma et al /International Journal of ChemTech Research, 2018,11(05): 139-148. 141 Materials and Methods The monitoring was carried out from an estuarine point of Dharma river, East coast of India having 20046'37.35"N latitude and 86057'25.41"E longitude. Diurnal surface water samples were collected in an every tide (LT, MT and HT) for a period of 36 hr. to know the tidal effect on hydro-chemical parameters. By taking this fundamental idea, we have monitored two different seasons like pre-monsoon as dry season and post- monsoon as wet season during the year 2016 (un available of monsoon data).On board measurement was done for the pH, water temperature, conductivity and salinity using WTW kit (multi 340 i). The collected samples were preserved with maximum priority until it reaches to the laboratory (CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Govt. of India).Suspended solids concentration (SSC), alkalinity, dissolved oxygen(DO) and bio-chemical oxygen demand(BOD) were measured by the standard methods14.Samples for BOD were 0 incubated in laboratory for five days at 20 C.Nutrient parameters such as nitrite(NO2-N), nitrate(NO3-N), ammonia(NH4-N), silicate(SiO4-Si), phosphate(PO4-P), total nitrogen(TN), and total phosphorus(TP) were analysed by standard photometric method15 using Varian 50 U.V-visible spectrophotometer. Cellulose nitrate membrane filters (pore size . μm) were used for the measurement of SSC. Result and Discussion Seasonal and diurnal variations of environmental variables The inter-seasonal and diurnal variability in the physic-chemical properties of Dhamra estuarine were well marked. The seasonal variations of environmental variables during two different seasons are cited in the text (Table 1).During pre-monsoon or dry season; the water temperature varied from 29.70 to 30.900C (30.45±0.36), suspended solids 31.03 to 109.36 (60.10 ±24.27)mg/l, pH 8.06 to 8.13(8.09 ± 0.02), conductance 36.70 to 49.50 (43.17 ± 4.87)mS/cm, salinity 23.94 to 32.99 (29.11 ± 3.59)PSU, alkalinity 109.87 to 131.76 (119.21± 6.18)mg/l, dissolved oxygen (DO) 4.72 to 6.18 (5.62±0.43)mg/l, biological oxygen demand (BOD) 1.33 to 3.76 (2.87 ± 0.73)mg/l, nitrite- NO2 0.11 to 1.67 (0.77 ± 0.49) µmol/l, nitrate- NO3 6.89 to 13.80 (9.82± 2.23) µmol/l, ammonia- NH4 0.11 to 3.06 (0.95 ± 0.83) µmol/l, total nitrogen-TN 16.27 to 37.72 (28.46± 6.45) µmol/l, inorganic phosphate (IP) 0.47 to 1.21 (0.86±0.23) µmol/l, total phosphorous-TP 0.94 to 1.97 (1.19±0.27) µmol/land silicate- SiO4 20.63 to 82.01 (46.87±25.47) µmol/l.During
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