Temporal Stability of Microbial Water Quality in Wye Island Irrigation Pond

Temporal Stability of Microbial
Water Quality in Wye Island Irrigation Pond

A temporal stability study was
conducted on an irrigation pond denominated Wye Island Pond in the state of
Maryland with the goal of finding a relationship between bacteria and algae. Temporal
stability is the study of points through time, in this case we studied where
the E.coli concentrations are
higher and lower than the average. The reason for studying this was to find
points where bacteria was low, so consequently, irrigation from those points would
reduce the amount of bacteria that gets to the crops. Additionally, irrigation
water has recently been regulated under FDA FSMA and is a new interest in the
food industry and technology. The
objective of this study was to determine if a temporal stability pattern is
present in the distribution of the microbial water quality indicator E.coli.
In addition, algae concentrations were measured to identify a possible temporal
stability pattern. Thirty-four different points were taken into
consideration and were randomly studied three times on a period of two months. Twenty-four
points were hand sampled from the banks and the other ten samples were kayak
samples from the interior of the pond. After analyzing graphs, the bacteria and
algae graphs demonstrated the same relationship throughout the pond. Meaning
that the high concentrations were located approximately at the same area. But, when
comparing both of them, relationship bacteria/algae, could not be found. Mean
relative differences were computed and were found to be higher near the banks
of the pond. This can be due to the water run-off depositing in the ponds and
making the bank concentrations of bacteria higher, or can be caused by other
natural phenomena. In the future there is a possibility of having more samples,
by doing this, temporal stability concentrations could help us decrease the
number of samples needed to test irrigation sites because of spatial trends.