APPARATUS AND METHOD OF PORTABLE AUTOMATED BIOMONITORING OF WATER QUALITY

摘要

A portable automated biomonitoring system (10) for monitoring water qualityincludes an exposure chamber (62) for housing an aquatic organism (64) and awater inlet (13, 14) for directing water to the exposure chamber (62). Theaquatic organism (64) has ventilatory behavior and body movement sensitive towater quality. Electrodes sense electrical signals produced by the organism(64) during its ventilatory behavior and body movement, and a controller (32)responsive to signals from the electrodes determines a plurality ofventilatory parameters based to the signals. The ventilatory parameters arecompared with corresponding thresholds to determine when the water to whichthe organism (64) is exposed has caused physiological stress to the organism(64). The water being evaluated may be recirculated through the system forfurther analysis.