Enterobacteriaceae isolates from surface water were examined to assess impact of feacal and/or metal pollution on heavy metal, antibiotics resistance and plasmid incidence. A bi-modal CMI distribution was noted for cadmium and mercury. On the other hand, modal distribution was observed for Pb. Critical metal concentration were >8, >32, > or =4096 microg mL(-1) for mercury, cadmium and lead, respectively. High resistance to Pb and low resistance to Cd were remarked in stream water polluted with heavy metal. Resistance to antibiotics was most frequent to erythromycin (45.45-68.8%), tetracyclin family (14-61.11%), streptomycin (16-24%) and furan (8.16-24.1%). Bacterial resistance to some antibiotics (kanamycin, tetracyclin, doxycyclin, furan and chloramphenicol) was significantly different (p < 0.05) between streams water. Analysis of antibiotic resistance by principal component analysis showed a clear difference between fresh water and urban waste water for two principal components (1, 2) and the difference between principal component scores of antibiotic could not be related to the faecal pollution level. No difference was found between stream water subjected or not to contamination from metallic or poultry waste. The frequency of strains carrying plasmids was higher in urban waste water than metal and/or low faecal polluted stream water. No correlation was observed between plasmid and metal resistance.