THE PRELIMINARY BIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN MIDIA HARBOR - BLACK SEA – ROMANIA

Ana Bianca Pavel, Priscila Opreanu, Irina Catianis, Dan Grosu, Costin Ungureanu, Adrian Stanica
INCD GeoEcoMar, Bucuresti,  Romania

Abstract

Midia Harbor is located on the Black Sea coast, on about 13.5 km north of Constanta harbor - city.  It was designed and built to provide facilities for industrial and petrochemical adjacent activities.
In marine port areas, the study of benthic populations being under the influence of pollution sources provides data regarding the level of pollution in the area depending on the degree of degradation of the biological community; in the same time reveal environmental data concerning the resistance of various organisms to altered environmental conditions.Taking into consideration the industrial activities from the Midia Harbor area, this study is of particularly importance regarding not only the pollution-tolerant benthic invertebrates but also other susceptible organisms. In order to determine the status of marine water quality inside and in the vicinity of the Midia Harbor was collected a lot of water and sediment samples that have been subjected to a series of physico-chemical measurements. In detail the biological investigations were performed (benthonic organisms)
Due to biological test results were identified and studied 14 groups of the following macrozoobenthos groups: briozoa, turbelaria, polycheta, oligocheta, bivalves, gastropods, gammaridae, cirripedia, cumacea, corophidae, decapoda, hydrozoa, chironomidae larvae, fish - Gobius sp. and 2 meiozoobenthos  groups: nematodes and harpacticida.
The analysis of the structure of benthic invertebrate population from Midia harbor aquatorium led to the following considerations:
The assembly of existing species from port aquatorium cannot be considered as an individualized biocoenosis or a community, because these organisms were also being found in the biocoenoses located outside the  port perimeters. Their coexistence in the marine environment is due to the fact that only these species present limits of comparable tolerances without important biological interactions between them.
It was noticed the constant presence of several species whose biology is significant, as: opportunistic polichaetes Neanthes succinea and Polydora cornuta which are particularly resistant to pollution, being common also in portuar marine environment and in marine open sea; concerning the bivalves Mytilus galloprovincialis, Mya arenaria, Abra ovata and Scapharca inequivalvis we can say that these populations are more resistant to severe environmental conditions, having a better ability to withstand of environmental alterations.