Surface water quality of the Marche Region (Italy): the river Foglia

As part of their research program into the quality of surface waters in the Marche, the Authors carried outs a detailed chemical, chemico-physical, and biological monitpring (studying the bentihic macroinvertebrate communities) of the River Foglia. A close agreement was generally found between the chemical parameters and the biological data. However, in certain stretches of the river, the macroinvertebrate communities analysis revealed a situation worse than that deduces from chemical analysisi. This diversity of findings may be attributed to the occasional discharges that escaped the repeated samplings, as well as to a certain discontinuity in the proper working of the purification palants, to the products forming as a consequence of heavy chlorination of wastewaters, and to a synergic effect between the various low concentration pollutants present. One of the first considerations to be made as result of the present work is the need to integrate a number of diciplines in this study whiche attempts to evaluate the quality of watercourses. Such an investigation cannot limit itself to clssical chemical and bacteriological parameters but must also avil itself of the study of various biological insicators.