الفهرس 
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Abstract
Water pollution is considered as a serious problem affecting many coastal ecosystems
around the world. Likewise, the Mediterranean coastal areas suffer from degradation of water
quality and many hot spot areas are designated there. That is due to receiving huge volumes
of wastewaters every year which are loaded by variable amounts and types of pollutants, in
addition to the nitrogenous and phosphorous compounds which cause in turn a high level of
eutrophication. This importunate problem extended to the Egyptian Mediterranean coast,
resulting in elementary changes in the structure of planktonic and benthic communities and
sometimes caused fish mortality. The level of eutrophication varied along the Egyptian coast
according to the variations in volume and contents of discharged wastes. Over 183x106 m3 of
untreated domestic sewage and wastewater are annually discharged through several sewers
from different sources into the coast.
El-Mex Bay is one of the most important coastal embayment and industrial zones along
the Mediterranean Sea, west of Alexandria. It is an essential fishery ground as well as a
recreational area. The bay suffers from direct or indirect increase in nutrient enrichment
levels and a consequent increase in eutrophication levels during the past two decades, which
was first recorded in 1985.
The aim of this study is to identify gaps in the current knowledge and to provide an
overview of the consequences of eutrophication in the bay. The knowledge gained is essential
to develop appropriate conservation and management strategies for the future of proposed
projects aiming to improve the national economy.
In this work, we evaluate the present status of El-Mex Bay based on the community
structure of the phytoplankton and seaweeds as biological tools in relation to the physicochemical
parameters. The Samples of biological parameters (Phytoplankton and macroalage)
and the ambient seawater were performed seasonally from spring, 2018 to winter, 2019,
covering five sites in El-Mex Bay. The measured environmental parameters include surface
water temperature, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and analysis of the dissolved inorganic
nutrients (NH3, NO2, NO3, PO4, SiO4, TN and TP). Estimation of the phytoplankton count as
well as identification and classification of algal taxa were performed. Regarding macroalgae,
qualitative sampling of seaweeds was carried out at the same five sites for speciesidentification and quantitative sampling for the determination of cover percentage and
biomass.