Fish Distribution and Abundance in the Upper Awash River, West Shewa, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted to assess the impact of agricultural and industrial wastes on the distribution and relative abundance of fish along the upper Awash River Basin. Fishes were collected using electrofishing apparatus from three sampling sites along the river representing different levels of anthropogenic impacts on the river. A total of 1912 fish belonging to five species were collected from all sampling sites. Nearly 73.43% of the fish were collected from the pool as compared with that of rifle habitat. Fish abundance varied significantly (p<0.05) between the sampling sites. Generally, diversity of fish and abundance declined drastically from the less impacted site towards the downstream sites S2 and S3 indicating the impact of agricultural and industrial effluents on the fish fauna of the river Awash.