Microbial quality assessment of Beni Aamir and Beni Moussa groundwater (Tadla plain-Morocco) (original) (raw)

2020, Desalination and Water Treatment

The groundwaters from the deep aquifers of the Tadla are mainly used for agriculture, industry, and drinking water. To assess the state of microbial contamination of the groundwater in the irrigated area, a study has been carried out over a 1 y period from March 2017 to May 2018. A total of 43 wells are selected and the water has been analyzed every 3 months to quantify the coliforms (TC), fecal coliforms (FC), and fecal streptococci (FS) using the membrane filter (MF) method, and also to perform a spatial-temporal mapping in order to clarify the concentration of pollution using the Surfer software. The result has revealed significant groundwater contamination by microbial agents. The analyzes of TC, FC, and FS indicated that 95.34%, 86.04%, and 55.81% of the wells tested to exceed 1,000 CFU/100 mL respectively, for each TC, FC, and FS group, where 100% of the wells have positive results, that is, having more than one colony-forming unit (CFU). However, spatial variation maps show c...