Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

SEDIMENT LOGICAL AND GEOCHEMICAL STUDIES OF KADINAMKULAM ESTUARY, SOUTHERN KERALA

K.S. Arunkumar and Sabu Joseph

Abstract

Sediment°logical and geochemical studies of sub-aqueous sediments are vital for understanding the aquatic ecosys-tem, particularly the processes like elemental cycles, transportation of nutrients and contaminants, and are signatures of the overlying water quality.The Kadinamkulam estuary, one of the largest estuary in Trivandrum district, has been selected for this study due to variegated reasons like organic pollution from retting of coconut husk and discharge of untreated sewage.This study focuses on aspects like texture, nutrients, total organic carbon (TOC), major and trace elements, and their distribution in the sub-aqueous sediments.The spatial and temporal distribution of these attributes are dominantly controlled by factors like hydrodynamic regime of the estuary, effluent discharge from urban, agricul-tural and industrial sources, retting etc.