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.