ABSTRACT
The Mekong is an essential source of water and protein for the denizens of Thai Laos countries. It is hypothesized that pollution may be adversely affecting the water and sediment quality, which threatens the short and long-term use of this major river system. This directly impacts on the health and population of the aquatic life and ultimately human health and the economy for both countries maybe affected. The quality of the river can be assessed from various chemical and physical parameters. For the Mekong study a range of water quality parameters were measured from 10 sampling stations. These included the PolyAromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) Fluorene, Phenanthrene, Anthracene, Fluoranthene, Pyrene, Benzo(a)anthracene, Chrysene, Benzo(b)fluoranthene, Benzo(k)fluoranthene,Benzo(a)pyrene, Dibenzo(a,h)anthracene, Benzo(g,h,i)perylene and Indeno(l,2,3,cd)pyrene. Heavy metals were also measured including Chromium, Cadmium, Mercury, Copper, Zinc, Lead, Manganese and Titanium. The introduction of Environmental Quality Standards allows comparison of the values obtained with the guidelines. Furthermore the modeling programs PBTprofiler/ EPISUITE were used to determine the environmental partitioning of pollutants within the different environmental compartments, ECOSAR was used to assess the impact on fish. For metals an experimental model was compared to the default model. This involved experimentally measuring the log Koc and from this determining the log Kow. This study provides a preliminary evaluation of the extent of the pollution, potential for bioaccumulation within the local food chain and environmental fate in both the wet and dry seasons of the Mekong River.
