The development of continuous automatic biological monitoring systems for water quality control

During the past decade, South Africa has experienced an unprecendented degree of industrial expansion. Although this has enhanced the material wealth and personal comfort of all the nations' peoples, it has also produced an undesirable consequence - ever increasing pollution of the aquatic environment. Viable systems for continuously monitoring water quality are, therefore, of critical importance for the future management and use of our watersheds. The value of regional monitoring programs using physical and chemical measurements is already well established. The major difficulty with this type of monitoring system, however, arises in the analysis of the data and in making evaluations of a complex ecosystem from the measurements of a few physical parameters such as dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature and conductivity. Further, it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict the biological effects of a complex continuously changing industrial effluent from chemical analyses alone.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Biological Sciences

Year dc:date.issued

1982

Author dc:creator

• Morgan, William Stephen Gilbert

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Brown, Alec C

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9952

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/9952