Bacterial kinetics and environmental capacity in he Western Xiamen Harbour

A principle, which has usually been applied to biochemical treatment for waste water is presently introduced into the study on marine microbiological ecology and employed in the estimation of environmental capacity.By means of a selection of 3 models for the microbial growth or for its oxygen consumption and determinations of concerned parameters in the field and the laboratory, the environmental capacity for the Restern Xiamen Harbour is evaluated to be 37 t·d^-1 of BOD₅ in gross or 28 t·d^-1 in net (with some 2500 of the gross capacity consumed by a present ecosystem) if BOD₅ is controlled without excess of 3 mg·dm^-3 in the sea water; it means that an amount of domestic waste water equal to 28 t of BOns can be naturally self-purified in this sea area everyday.Furthermore it is found that the K value, a constant of oxygen-consumed kinetics, shows possitive correlation to the concentration of BOD₅ in the same system and total bacterial number (T_B) in the seawater also to BOD₅ with a regression equation T_B (10⁸ dm^-3)=9.91×BOD₅ (mg·dm^-3)+1.74 (n=32.r=0.544 1, p<0.01).