Assessment of Water Quality of Soan River Using Physicochemical Parameters and Aquatic Insects Diversity

In the present study, the effect of pollutants produced by human dwelling, agricultural and industrial activities on aquatic invertebrate’s communities of Soan River, Pakistan was studied. Four different sites were selected on the basic of variation in microhabitat accessibility to examine the pollution in water. Samples were collected from these sites during autumn and spring. From all sites physical conditions, water samples and macroinvertebrates were collected. Conductivity and D.O didn’t fallow the WHO standards in both seasons while nitrate only have high concentration in autumn at all sites. All other parameters were normal except in pH at site D of spring. Aquatic insects were collected during the studied sites which belong to 6 orders and 15 families. Gerridae, Elimidae, Hydrophilidae, Gyrinidae, Culicidae and Chironomidae were most in both seasons. Total abundance was used to estimate the quality of water at each sites. Family biotic index (FBI) showed that water had good quality on upstream stations rather than downstream station in both season. While water quality index (WQI) also shows good water quality at upstream station rather than downstream stations. This study showed that aquatic insects could provide useful bioindicators to approach the biomonitoring in relation to water physio-chemical parameters to classify compare and assess the quality of water of freshwater streams in Pakistan.