Análisis de la calidad de agua de la microcuenca del río Cebadas mediante indicadores ecológicos

Abstract

The objective of this research was to determine the water quality in the Río Cebadas micro watershed by applying the ecological indices, for this purpose the Colombian biological monitoring working party index (BMWP / CoI) and the Andean Biotic Index (ABI) were used. The water quality was evaluated by means of the index of physical-chemical parameters Water quality index (WQI), additionally the habitat in the sampling areas was analyzed through the Riparian Forest Quality index (QBR) and Andean Riparian Forest index (QBR-And ) and the river habitat index (IHF), also the existing diversity with the alpha Shannon-Wiener index and the flow was measured. During the research, 6 monitoring campaigns were carried out in 15 different points within the Cebadas river micro watershed. The macroinvertebrate collection was carried out using a sediment hole, the physical parameters of the water were carried out, parameters such as: dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids, water temperature were determined in situ and they were analyzed in the Laboratorio de Calidad de Agua from ESPOCH. At the end of the study, it was evident that the micro watershed that had the greatest spatio-temporal variability was the Guamote river micro watershed with a change of 16.2%, Cebadas with 14%, Ozogoche with 17.3%, Atillo with 2.9%; in contrast, the higher index of correlation, 0.91 corresponds to the ABI variables with BMWP / col, the lowest was 0.20 QWI with IHF, concluding that the ecological indices demonstrate the quality of a water resource at a multitemporal level while the QWI is an index that predicts the water quality. After the application of the ecological indices, the Cebadas river micro watershed presents a regular water quality, so it is important to establish a management plan for the protection and conservation of the micro watershed and verify its compliance.