Antimicrobial Resistance in the Ganga River Ecosystem: Linking Heavy Metal Pollution,Microbial Communities,and Environmental Resistance

What is it about?

Water is one of the most vital natural resources and is essential to a nation's socioeconomic growth. Rivers continue to be the primary source of surface water, nonetheless. About 252.8 million hectares make up the whole catchment area of India's many big, medium and minor rivers. The Indian subcontinent's largest river basin is the Ganga basin. It originated in the state of Uttarakhand and occupies more than one-fourth of the nation's land area. The Ganga basin is home to around half of the country's class 1 and class 2 towns, most of which dispose of their waste in the Gangetic River system. The increasing pollution of river systems poses a signiicant challenge to water quality management and public health. In this study, total 18 water samples were collected from different locations to evaluate the Ganga River's physicochemical and microbiological quality from Uttarakhand (Gaumukh) to the Bay of Bengal (Gangasagar) to determine the effects of anthropogenic activities. The study utilized crisp data summaries of key water quality parameters, including pH, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, and total coliform, guided by the distribution of waste discharge points. The most probable number (MPN) test is the important and observable method employed here to assess the estimation of coliform count; biochemical tests were performed for the characterisation of the bacteria isolated. An analysis of the whole Ganga River revealed that the overall middle stretch has more anthropogenic activities than the upper and lower stretch. In this study, the quantity of indicator bacteria found in the sacred Ganga water will be the main emphasis, and the water quality and health implications will be extensively examined. Since water is essential to all living things, including humans, and its quality and cleanliness are important for human health, particularly when considering microbial contamination.

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Photo by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on Unsplash

Photo by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on Unsplash