Ecotoxicological and Microbiological Risk Assessment of Groundwater from Dimba Cave, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Dimba Cave is a large array of natural galleries in limestone mountains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that contains highly valued pre-historic archaeological artifacts. The cave attracts a high number of tourists every year and is used by local populations as a water supply source. The main objective of the research undertaken in Dimba Cave consisted of assessing the quality of water and sediments from Dimba Cave ponds through evaluating contamination by heavy metals (15 elements analyzed, including As, Cd, Pb, and Hg) and by microbial populations (including and total coliforms) in order to estimate the ecotoxicological risk to humans and to non-human biota.

High levels of faecal contamination in drinking groundwater and recreational water due to poor sanitation, in the sub-rural neighbourhoods of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In many urban and peri-urban areas of developing countries, shallow wells and untreated water from urban rivers are used for domestic purposes, including drinking water supply, population bathing and irrigation for urban agriculture. The evaluation and monitoring of water quality are therefore necessary for preventing potential human risk associated with the exposure to contaminated water. In this study, physicochemical and bacteriological parameters were assessed in an urban river (named Kokolo Canal/Jerusalem River) draining the municipality of Lingwala (City of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo) and in two shallow wells used as drinking water supplies, during the wet and dry seasons in order to estimate the seasonal variation of contamination.

Hospital Effluents Are One of Several Sources of Metal, Antibiotic Resistance Genes, and Bacterial Markers Disseminated in Sub-Saharan Urban Rivers.

Data concerning the occurrence of emerging biological contaminants such as antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) in aquatic environments in Sub-Saharan African countries is limited. On the other hand, antibiotic resistance remains a worldwide problem which may pose serious potential risks to human and animal health. Consequently, there is a growing number of reports concerning the prevalence and dissemination of these contaminants into various environmental compartments.

The impact of hospital and urban wastewaters on the bacteriological contamination of the water resources in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Although the United Nations General Assembly recognized in 2010 the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the contamination of water supplies with faecal pathogens is still a major and unsolved problem in many parts of the world. In this study, faecal indicator bacteria (FIB), including Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Enterococcus (ENT), were quantified over the period of June/July 2014 and June/July 2015 to assess the quality of hospital effluents (n = 3: H1, H2 and H3) and of rivers receiving wastewaters from the city of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.