The influence of land use on water quality and diatom community structures in urban and agriculturally stressed rivers

Abstract

Epilithic diatom communities offer a holistic and integrated approach for assessing water quality as they remain in one place for a number of months and reflect an ecological memory of water quality over a period of time. The objective of this study is to use diatom assemblages to distinguish between particular land types and associated water quality impacts that are linked to these land-use patterns. Water quality and diatom community data were collected from sites in the Crocodile and Magalies Rivers (Gauteng and North West Province, South Africa) associated with agricultural, urban and natural (reference) adjacent land use respectively. The data collected were subjected to multivariate statistical techniques to analyse spatial and temporal patterns in water quality (principal component analysis) and diatom community struc tures (non-metric multidimensional scaling) to elucidate hypothesised differences in community structure per land-use type.

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