Chemical Characterization of Lake Togbadji

Abstract

The present study focused on the chemical characterization of the watercourse of the Togbadji Lake wildlife ranch. The methodological approach followed is as follows: Bibliography review, Sampling campaign. The results obtained were the subject of descriptive statistics, the two-sample Wilcoxon test to determine the impact of different localities on the abundance of microbiological contaminants, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with the software R version 3.5.0, in order to group the pollution parameters according to the different levels and sources of contamination. From our results, it is found that the respective average values in dry and rainy seasons for ammonium ions are 0.38 ± 0.16 mg/L and 0.22 ± 0.03 mg/L; for nitrite ions 0.20 ± 0.25 mg/L and 0.02 ± 0.01 mg/L; for nitrate ions 3.72 ± 2.52 mg/L and 7.84 ± 4.91 mg/L; for total Kjeldahl nitrogen 1.27 ± 1.44 mg/L and 1.19 ± 1.49 mg/L; for orthophosphate ions 0.20 ± 0.25 mg/L and 0.02 ± 0.01 mg/L; for total phosphorus 0.04 ± 0.01 mg/L and 0.11 ± 0.23 mg/L; the chemical oxygen demand 93.36 ± 61.73 mg/L of O2 and 89.93 ± 66.11 mg/L of O2 and the biochemical oxygen demand over 5 days 25.50 ± 18.22 mg/L of O2 and 37 ± 33.15 of O2. It emerged that the main sources of pollution in Lake Togbadji are runoff water, discharges of various wastewater from artisanal activities, livestock farming and open defecation.