Abstract
The river Ravi, while passing through Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, gets highly polluted owning heavy loads of untreated municipal sewage and industrial effluents of diverse kinds. The fish, Catla catla sampled in two different seasons from three downstream polluted sites were compared with the samples of the same fish from an upstream, a less polluted site, for their physico-chemical parameters. The data were statistically analysed to study the effect of sites, seasons and their interaction on the physico-chemical parameters of waters and mineral uptake in fish muscles. Significant differences (P < 0.001) among the sampling sites and seasons were observed. The river appeared to be polluted as indicated by the high values of total suspended solids (909 mg/l) and sulphate (964 mg/l) in comparison to the respective values of 150 and 600 mg/l being suggested as the safer values of drinking water of the National Environmental Quality Standards. Most trace and macro elements in fish muscles were increased with the increasing pollution loads from the upstream to the downstream sites of this river. The remarkable increases in the levels of all the investigated minerals in fish muscles from the polluted sites raise concerns about the long-term health of the river Ravi ecosystem and consequently the fish and its consumer’s health. The results contradict the opinion of the local population that the riverine fish are natural, more health-promoting and precious than the pond fish. Therefore, we strongly argue for the utilization of an effect-based monitoring approach to alleviate the detrimental effects of anthropogenic activities on fish and the fish consumers’ health.
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Thanks to the Higher Education Commission , Pakistan for funding the first author under the “Indigenous Ph.D. 5000 Fellowship program” and “IRSIP” to support this research at University of the Punjab, Pakistan and Newcastle University, UK.
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Shakir, A., Chaudhry, A.S. & Qazi, J.I. Impact of anthropogenic activities on physico-chemical parameters of water and mineral uptake in Catla catla from river Ravi, Pakistan. Environ Monit Assess 185, 2833–2842 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2753-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2753-3