Abstract
Introduction. In the Almería littoral, the expansion and intensification of irrigated agriculture led to the construction of irrigation ponds in recent decades, mainly in areas with high agricultural development and water scarcity. The water quality of agricultural ponds depends, largely, of the management that the farmers made, and frequently, this management does not allow compatibility between the agronomic and the environmental functions. Objective. Assess, using a field experimental approach, the effect of treatment with copper sulfate (CuSO4) has on water quality of irrigation ponds in southeast of Spain. Materials and methods. Some physicochemical and biological characteristics indicators of water quality for drip irrigation were evaluated during a cropping season in 6 irrigation ponds including; 3 treated and 3 untreated with biocidal. Results. In treatment ponds, the copper concentration showed a peak average of 300 µg L-1 at 10 days of treatment but at 50 days the copper concentration of these ponds didn´t differ significantly with the untreated ponds concentration value. Conclusions. The treatment with copper sulfate adversely affect the quality of water for irrigation by determining increases in the concentration of suspended solids and planktonic chlorophyll a in the treated ponds. The treatment inhibited the development of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) although this inhibition may also be as a result of a regime of frequent treatments with biocides in previous years.
Key words: irrigation ponds, water quality, copper sulfate, submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV).
