 |
Water Science & Technology: Water Supply Vol 1 No 2 pp 9–17 © IWA Publishing 2001
Development of a bio-monitoring system for toxicants in water with fish
Y-H Lee*, H-K Lee**, C-H Chang*** and W-H Kim****
*
Hyundai Institute of Construction Technology,
Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd,
#102-4, Mabuk-Ri, Kuseong-Myun, Yongin City Kyungki-Do, 449-710, Korea
**
Hyundai Institute of Construction Technology,
Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd,
#102-4, Mabuk-Ri, Kuseong-Myun, Yongin City Kyungki-Do, 449-710, Korea
***
Hyundai Institute of Construction Technology,
Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd,
#102-4, Mabuk-Ri, Kuseong-Myun, Yongin City Kyungki-Do, 449-710, Korea
****
Faculty of Ocean System Engineering, Mokpo National Maritime University,
#571-2, Chukkyo-Dong, Mokpo City, Chollanam-Do, Korea
ABSTRACT
A bio-monitoring system for toxicants in water has been developed and
verified for actual applications. This system is based on the motionality
of five Acheilognathus lanceolata, a fish known to be very sensitive to
toxic substances, moving around in an aquarium. Their movements are
continuously monitored with a charge coupled device (CCD) camera and
analyzed to find and quantify any abnormal behavior in their motional
characteristics in comparison with the pre-acquired data. That is, the
images of fish captured by a CCD camera are digitalized to identify the
location of fish in a constant time interval and the locations of each
fish were then analyzed mathematically with a personal computer using the
equations proposed to determine the motional characteristics such as
floatness, fledness and mobility(agility). These data are then converted
by means of fuzzy estimation to an index value, defined as the
contamination index (CI), by which the system provides the information
about the overall toxic strength of the toxicant in the water flowing into the aquarium. If the fish are exposed to toxicant(s), the CI value
will be proportional to the strength of its toxicity. The pilot test was
performed in a water treatment plant for six months in order to verify the
reproducibility of the system over the unstable conditions such as highly
turbid water after rainfall as well as in normal conditions. The test
results revealed that this monitoring system has good reproducibility
and sensitivity, proving our approach, described in this paper, is
reliable. As a result, this approach seems to enable us to make a
quick and easy detection of toxic substances contained in water,
therefore, this system can be applied to a source of water supply
as a toxicant watching system.
Full article (PDF Format)
PAY-PER-VIEW: Buy this article for £20.00 (IWA MEMBER PRICE: £15.00)
|
|
|
