Impact of culture intensity and monsoon season on water quality in Thai commercial shrimp ponds

The present authors investigated the impact of farming intensity and the prevailing season on water quality in intensive tropical shrimp farms. The weekly water quality samples from the inlets and production ponds of two commercial shrimp farms operating partial water exchange schedules and representing low and high farming intensities in Thailand (with Penaeus monodon Fabricius production rates of 4 and 9 t ha-1 cycle-1, respectively) were analysed over two consecutive production cycles, covering the wet (monsoon) and dry seasons. Significant differences in inlet water quality between farms occurred only in salinity, temperature and suspended solids. The present authors assessed impacts of farming intensity and season on production pond water quality parameters using: (1) an analysis of variance (ANOVA) of measurements in replicate ponds during the final month of the production cycle; and (2) a trend analysis which classified trends in parameters over the cycle as externally or internally determined. The prevailing season was found to have a strong impact on salinity, temperature, pH, nitrate, dissolved reactive phosphorus, total phosphorus and dissolved oxygen in the final month of the cycle. The trends in these parameters were largely externally determined or absent. Nitrite and chlorophyll a were affected by production intensity in interaction with season and showed mainly internally determined trends. This indicates that nitrogen transformation processes responded to input levels as well as seasonal influences. Ammonia was highly variable and no significant intensity or season effects were detected, but trends were internally determined only at high intensity and more pronounced in the dry rather than the wet season. The results indicate strong seasonal effects on water quality in tropical shrimp ponds, direct in some parameters and indirect in others, including those linked to nitrogen transformations. The mechanisms of seasonal variation and the implications of these changes for water quality management call for further investigation.