Quality assessment of freshwater and coastal seawater in the Ionian area of N.E. Sicily,Italy

This work was conducted to analyse pressing and competingdemands of water in Northeast Sicily, Italy. In thisarea, looking at the Ionian Sea, freshwaters and coastalseawaters have been studied on the quality and on thetransport processes of pollutants. Attention has beenfocused on chemical and microbial parameters proposed byEuropean Directives for drinking freshwaters and bathingseawaters. The findings show that the ground freshwaters areof good quality but the surface ones, particularly torrentsand correlated under-river aquifers, are clearly polluted.The characteristics of the coastal seawaters are accordingwith those of the closely bound up estuarine waters.Contamination is due essentially to discharge of raw sewagein the watercourses by public and private pipes. The impactis usually less evident during the wet season because rainand seastorms dilute the polluting load, but in dry periodsthis pollution causes loss of habitat and deleterious effectson environment. A database has been developed to provide agraphic and mapping display interface of the area studied andto assist the management of the studied fluvial basins.