Israel rivers are small and mostly located in the coastal plane and in the northern mountainous part as well as following across the Lake Kinneret to the Dead Sea area. The Zin Stream is the only permanent flow in the Negev Desert. The algae of Israel rivers have been only episodically studied till 2001. The Israel Ministry of Environment survey system does not include biological parameters in the monitoring of the rivers at all. Our study of the riverine ecosystems in 2001-2011 has revealed 671 species belonging to 9 divisions. Most species are bio-indicators for salinity, acidity, temperature, streaming, oxygenation, and organic pollution. In order to implement the EU Water Framework Directive we used the algal diversity and the environmental variables of their habitats for construction of the biological part of the Israel monitoring system. According to the bio-indication analysis, the majority of the rivers are carbonate, natural clean in the upper reaches but moderately polluted under anthropogenic impact in the lower reaches. The calculated indices of water quality include the River Pollution Index (RPI), assessing the disturbance of riverine ecosystems as a result of anthropogenic impact and seasonal climate fluctuations. The saprobity indices show a low to moderate organic pollution of large fluctuation amplitude during dry and wet seasons. The new indices of ecosystem toxicity are the Water Ecosystem State Index (WESI), revealing the impact of photosynthesis and correlation of organic pollution with toxicity, in particular in the Upper Jordan River, Yarqon, Qishon and Hadera rivers. This index can be used for rapid integral assessment of ecosystem sustainability. Ecological mapping was performed for assessing seasonality of pollution: while the Upper Jordan River Basin was heavy polluted in winter, the coastal rivers Qishon, Hadera, Alexander and Yarqon are more polluted during summer. This study shows that algal diversity can be used as a tool in the biological monitoring of water resources in Israel.
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Author Name: Sophia Barinova, Valentin A. Krassilov
URL: View PDF
Keywords: Algal Diversity, Rivers, Bio-Indication, Diversity Indices, Ecological Mapping, Israel
ISSN: 2324-6995
EISSN: 2324-7029
EOI/DOI:
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