STUDY ON THE ANALYSIS OF PHYSICOCHEMICAL PARAMETER, HEAVY METAL AND MICROBIAL DIVERSITY OF WATER SAMPLES FROM UYYAKONDAN CANAL

Abstract :

The present study focuses on microbial pollution and antibiotic sensitivity profiling of the microbes like fecal coliforms from River Cauvery along Uyyakondan canal, a major drinking water source in Tiruchirappalli, India. Water samples were collected from hotspots during the year 2019. The physicochemical characteristics and microbial count of water samples collected from most of the hotspots exhibited greater biological oxygen demand and bacterial count especially coliforms in comparison with control samples (p ≤ 0.01). The antibiotic sensitivity testing was performed using 4 antibiotics against the bacterial isolates with disk-diffusion assay. The current study showed that out of 5 bacterial isolates, 70% (n = 3) of the isolates were found to be multidrug-resistant to most of the current generation antibiotics. Among the major isolates, 85 % (n = 4) of the isolates were found to be multidrug-resistant to 3 antibiotics and they were identified to be gram negative. Almost all bacteria are resistant to at least two antibiotics. Analogously, most of the other Gram-negative bacteria were found to be multidrug-resistant and the Gram-positive bacteria, isolated from the water samples were found to be Ampicillin and Chloramphenicol-resistant. This is probably the first study elucidating the bacterial pollution and antibiotic sensitivity profiling of fecal coliforms isolated from Uyyakondan canal, Tiruchirappalli, India. Compared with all, samples of Kailash Nagar and Periyakulam make pink colour that indicates their pH near 8.2 or above 8.2. Similarly compared with others they have good content such EC (Electrical conductivity), Salinity and TDS (total dissolved salt) in the value of 632 and 834 S/m, 358 and 479 % and 448 and 594 ppm, respectively. In heavy metal analysis, four metals were observed by AAS. Palakarai and Palpannai have higher content of heavy metals other sample.