Assessment of environmental quality in coastal zones: a comparative study from Tamil Nadu coast

Abstract

The present study focuses on the ground water quality surface newlineand bottom water quality spatial distribution pattern of trace elements and newlinenutrients its changes on dissolved loads to understand the environmental newlinesignificance of the coastal environment This study provides multi element newlineconcentrations in the surface sediments from the offshore of Cauvery delta newlineand Thamirabarani river estuary of southeast India in order to evaluate the newlineimpact of coastal pollution on the geochemical behaviour of surface newlinedepositsFor this study samples were collected along the coasts off Cauvery newlineDelta SI and off Thamirabarani river estuary SII Apart from offshore newlinesampling samples were also collected from air water noise and soil and newlinewere analyzed accordingly This study also focusses on understanding the newlinegeochemical behaviour of the coastal surface sediments and its performance newlineand relation with the pollution indices and statistical analysis For biological newlineenvironment SHE analysis was performed to look at the contribution of newlinespecies number and equitability to changes in diversity Rarefaction analysis newlinewas applied to evaluate whether sampling at each locations quadrate was newlinesufficient to estimate diversity within samplings newlineAir quality parameters analysed are well within the CPCB newlinestandards in both the study areas The noise level in off Cauvery delta S I newlineshows slightly elevated values in location four whereas in off Thamirabarani newlineriver estuary S II the noise level shows slightly elevated values in almost all newlinethe locations except location three and are due to the industrial activities In newlineoff Cauvery delta S I all the parameters analysed in ground water samples newlineare well within the permissible limits Whereas in off Thamirabarani river newlineestuary S II it is dominantly alkaline in nature unfit for irrigation and newlinedrinking purposes declared hazardous and depicts very hard water type In newlinethe marine water samples the concentration of different parameters are well newlinewithin the limit and shows natural enrichment newline