Water quality and life: complex interactions
Water quality strongly determines the quality of life of aquatic animals. Where land-based animals can walk away from an area polluted with metabolic waste products, aquatic animals cannot. Dissolved or suspended waste products are quickly distributed throughtout the water body, leaving no room to escape. The water quality of any water body is influenced by complex interactions between physical, chemical, and biological processes. For most water quality parameters, aquatic animals can only funtion well within a narrow range of the concentration or amount present of the parameter considered. In this section, the effects of changes in concentrations of some important water quality parameters on the growth and health of fish are described.