Tracing Sewage Contamination in Urban Tropical Coastal Waters - Tony Bachtiar (ILMU KELAUTAN: Indonesian Journal of Marine Sciences, 2006)
Umumnya masyarakat kurang memberikan perhatian terhadap kontaminasi limbah (cair) domestik di perairan pantai perkotaan. Hal ini karena terutama karena kontaminasi limbah domestik umumnya dilaporkan tidak terdeteksi. Pemanfaatan bio-indikator untuk mendeteksi kontaminasi limbah di perairan pantai perkotaan mempunyai permasalahan karena tekanan lingkungan. Untuk dapat memahami dengan lebih baik kontaminasi limbah domestik di perairan pantai perkotaan tropis, 48 sampel sedimen permukaan dasar perairan dansampel air diambil pada musim Timur (Juli 1997) dan musim Barat (Pebruari 1998). Koprostanol, fecal sterol, telah dianalisis untuk mengetahui kontaminasi limbah domestik di perairan pantai perkotaan tropis. Analisis mencakup: a) kandungan koprostanol, b) karakteristik sedimen, dan c) coliform bacteria. Hasil analisis menunjukanbahwa pemanfaatan koprostanol dapat dengan jelas menunjukkan bahwa perairan pantai Semarang terkontaminasi limbah domestik, dimana bila menggunakan bio-indikator fecal coliform tidak terdeteksi.Kata kunci: pantai, kontaminasi, koprostanol, dan limbah domestik.Most people give less attention on sewage contamination in urban coastal waters. It is mainly because sewage contamination in coastal waters mostly was reported not detected. Using bio-indicator for detectingsewage contamination in urban coastal waters has problems because of the environmental stress. To better understand of sewage contamination in urban tropical coastal waters, 48 surface bottom sediment and watersamples of Semarang coastal waters were collected during East monsoon (July 1997) and West monsoon (February 1998). Coprostanol, a fecal sterol, had been analyzed to understand the sewage contamination inurban tropical coastal waters. The analyses included: a) coprostanol contain, b) sediment characteristics, and c) coliform bacteria. The results show that by using coprostanol it was clearly defined that Semarang coastal waters was contaminated by sewage, which by using bio-indicator, fecal coliform, could not be detected.Key words: coastal, contamination, coprostanol, and sewage.