The Value of the Freshwater Snail Dip Scoop Sampling Method in Macroinvertebrates Bioassessment of Sugar Mill Wastewater Pollution in Mbandjock, Cameroon

Innocent Takougang, Phillipe Barbazan, Paul B. Tchounwou and Emmanuel Noumi
Additional contact information
Innocent Takougang: Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Yaounde I, P.O. Box 1364, Cameroon
Phillipe Barbazan: Centre Pasteur du Cameroon, P.O. Box 1274 Yaounde, Cameroon
Paul B. Tchounwou: NIH-RCMI Center for Environmental Health, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS 39217, USA
Emmanuel Noumi: Department of Biological Sciences, Higher Teachers Training College, University of Yaounde I, P.O. Box 47 Yaounde, Cameroon

IJERPH, 2008, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Macroinvertebrates identification and enumeration may be used as a simple and affordable alternative to chemical analysis in water pollution monitoring. However, the ecological responses of various taxa to pollution are poorly known in resources-limited tropical countries. While freshwater macroinvertebrates have been used in the assessment of water quality in Europe and the Americas, investigations in Africa have mainly focused on snail hosts of human parasites. There is a need for sampling methods that can be used to assess both snails and other macroinvertebrates. The present study was designed to evaluate the usefulness of the freshwater snail dip scoop method in the study of macroinvertebrates for the assessment of the SOSUCAM sugar mill effluents pollution. Standard snail dip scoop samples were collected upstream and downstream of the factory effluent inputs, on the Mokona and Mengoala rivers. The analysis of the macroinvertebrate communities revealed the absence of Ephemeroptera and Trichoptera , and the thriving of Syrphidae in the sections of the rivers under high effluent load. The Shannon and Weaver diversity index was lower in these areas. The dip scoop sampling protocol was found to be a useful method for macroinvertebrates collection. Hence, this method is recommended as a simple, cost-effective and efficient tool for the bio-assessment of freshwater pollution in developing countries with limited research resources.

Keywords: bioassessment; snail dip scoop method; macroinvertebrates; sugar mill pollution; surface water quality; Cameroon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/5/1/68/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/5/1/68/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:5:y:2008:i:1:p:68-75:d:2296

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().