Impact of Wasit power plant effluents on biodiversity of benthic fauna in Tigris River, Province Wasit Iraq

الملخص EN

The aim of environmental study is to investigate the effects of the discharge of Wasit power plant in Al-Zubaidiya city on the physical- chemical factors and biodiversity of benthic invertebrates community of Tigris River, for a period from October 2017 to Augusts 2018.

The total number of benthic invertebrates in four stations was 12866 individual.

These benthic invertebrates belonged to 8 taxonomic units.

This study includes some statistical environmental indexes (Relative abundance index, Shannon-Weiner Diversity Index, Species Uniformity Index, Species Richness Index and Jaccard Index).

The results reveal that the environmental indexes were decreased at station 2 and thermal Wasit power plant negatively effects benthic invertebrate community at station 2 near the effluent waste pipe site.