Torrens River at Mount Pleasant

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Archived water quality assessments

Ecological health

We collect two samples of macroinvertebrates, one from riffle (or flowing water) habitat and one from edge (still water) habitat. The diversity of the macroinvertebrate community is used to describe ecological health as being in good, moderate or poor condition.

Ecological health assessment for December 2005

Habitat	Ecological health
Edge	Good
Riffle	Good

The ecological health at this site varies in spring due to the influx of Murray River water via the Mannum to Mt Pleasant pipeline. On occasions this site has been rated poor.

Ecological health assessment for May 2005

Habitat	Ecological health
Edge	Good
Riffle	Moderate

The riffle habitat is often in moderate condition at this site with fewer species of macroinvertebrates found here than expected. This may be due to poor water quality at this site or poor habitat quality.

Water chemistry

The indicators that are measured in the Torrens River at Mount Pleasant are nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), turbidity and salinity. The concentrations of these indicators are used to classify the water chemistry as being in good, moderate or poor condition, according to the needs of aquatic ecosystem protection.

Water chemistry classification for October 2005 to March 2006

Indicator	Classification
Oxidised Nitrogen	Good
Total Nitrogen	Poor
Soluble Phosphorus	Poor
Total Phosphorus	Poor
Turbidity	Good

The amount of nitrogen and phosphorus can be increased by fertilisers or animal wastes being washed off farms during storms or due to effluent outfalls. These classifications are consistent with previous results.

Water chemistry classification for April to September 2005

Indicator	Classification
Oxidised Nitrogen	Poor
Total Nitrogen	Poor
Soluble Phosphorus	Good
Total Phosphorus	Moderate
Turbidity	Good

The amount of nitrogen and phosphorus can be increased by fertilisers or animal wastes being washed off farms during storms or due to effluent outfalls. The high nitrogen and phosphorous results for the recent samples are consistent with previous results.

This page was last modified 13-09-2007