Perennial occurrence of heterotrophic, indicator and pathogenic bacteria in the coastal Bay of Bengal (off Visakhapatnam) - Impact of physical and atmospheric processes.

In order to examine the health of the coastal waters off Visakhapatnam in terms of prevalence and abundance of heterotrophic (H), indicator and pathogenic (P) bacterial counts (BC) and influence of physical processes on them, time-series observations were conducted during January (winter), March (spring), July (summer) and October (post-monsoon). We noticed the impact of physical forces on substantial variations in abundance and distribution of the HBC, total coliforms, Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the study region. Based on our results Escherichia coli and other PBC were not much influenced by the physical conditions. It has been noticed that the perennial existence of the high abundance of IBC and PBC above the standard limits during the entire study period leading to an alarming situation in the coastal waters off Visakhapatnam.