Introduction
In India, the Palk Bay has landmarks between the Point
Calimere and Rameshwaram island as northern and southern
borders, respectively. The eastern part of the bay is connected
with Srilanka whereas the western part of the bay is the border
of the Indian subcontinent. The plants and animals of this bay
are dependent on various physicochemical factors including
nutrients, which are responsible for the fertility of the water
masses (Harvey, 1995).
The Palk Bay region has not been paid much attention
when compared to the adjacent Gulf of Mannar and most of the
available literature and studies do not indicate the present
scenario of the bay. Jayaraman (1954) has studied the water
quality parameters of inshore waters of the Mandapam region.
Prasad and Nair (1960) have studied the distribution and
occurrence of diatoms in the inshore waters of the Palk Bay.
Murthy and Udaya Varma (1964) have studied the
hydrographical features of the Palk Bay. After this, there is no
work directly dealing with the water quality of the Palk Bay
except that of Kannan and Kannan (1996) who have studied
the physicochemical characteristics of the seaweed beds of the
Katumavadi and Kottaipattinam regions of the Palk Bay. Some
studies (Oswin and Rahman, 1997; Kannan et al., 2003) are
available on the Muthupettai mangroves of this region. Though,
considerable attention has been paid in the recent years to
study the physicochemical parameters of the coastal waters
around India in order to ascertain the water quality and
productivity, very little information is available on these aspects
of the Palk Bay. Hence, the present study was undertaken on
the water quality and phytoplankton characteristics for a period
of one year from April 2002 to March 2003 at Kattumavadi, a
coastal region in the Palk Bay.