Tracing Sewage Contamination in Urban Tropical Coastal Waters

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 detecting sewage 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 water samples 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 in urban 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.