Sanitary quality of the Yumuri River for fishing and recreational usage, from September 1990 to 2009

Abstract

The Yumuri river is one of the three most important rivers of Matanzas. Shorter and with less flow than the other two, the river divides the quarters of Versalles and Matanzas , but  the natural beauty of the scenery is blurred by the hygienic-environmental status of its sides and the residues dumping alongside it, from its source to its mouth. It has many polluting sources, due to the people´s action, and the human settlements; so the research done is a descriptive one, during the period from September 1998 to December 2009. We studied the physic-chemical parameters that may have a negative effect on the recreational and fishing usage of its waters in four sampling places alongside the river bed. The obtained results showed that the most probable number of total coliforms and the most probable number of fecal coliforms invalidate the usage of the river all along its course with a recreational objective, for direct or indirect contact. Respecting the fishing usage, the most negative physic-chemical values were reported at the Watkins Bridge, 25 %, and at the pedestrian bridge, 19 %. The media values of the ammoniacal nitrogen also had a doubtful quality for fishing in these two sampling places.