Freshwater rivers in the Philippines that used to be teeming with fishes and other valuable economical products are now deteriorating. Hence, there is a need to develop a fast means of determining the health of Philippine rivers before the tragic deaths of our valuable economical goods, such as fishes. One of the quick and reliable means of assessing the health of rivers is to use diatoms or community of diatoms as indices of water quality. But before one can develop such an index a right identification of diatoms, up to species level, is an important foundation that should be developed. Moreover, an intercalibration study must be done with macroinvertibrates to ascertain the validity of the biological index that will be developed. This current DOST-funded project primarily aims to establish a biological water quality index, using diatoms, for Philippine rivers, which will contribute to fisheries and environmental conservation. Moreover, the project also aims to undertake taxonomic survey of diatoms in representative Philippines rivers, and cultivate some of the important diatoms in vitro and assess their nutritional values and acceptability to some economically useful fishes, like tilapia.
Dr. Milagrosa R. Martinez-Goss
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