Determinación y caracterización de material particulado sedimentable en el casco urbano del cantón Portovelo

Abstract

In the canton of Portovelo, the main activity that generates economic income is the exploitation of mines and quarries with 38.9% according to the Population and Housing Census of the year 2010. The execution of these tasks brings with it emissions of polluting gases and particulate matter to the atmosphere, discharges of tailings to the rivers and generation of solid waste. The present research consists in establishing an air pollution baseline by sedimentary particulate matter in 12 sites of the urban center of the canton of Portovelo and determine the heavy metal content in 5 homogeneously selected samples, in order to spatially interpolate and to analyze statistically the obtained results. Analyzes of the sedimentary particulate matter indicate that 11 monitoring sites exceed the permissible maximum limit stipulated in Ministerial Agreement 097-A of 1mg/cm2*30 days; while referring to World Health Organization guidelines, all the sites analyzed exceed the permissible maximum limit of 0.5mg/cm2*30 days. Likewise, the reported results of heavy metals show that in El Pache sector, concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead exceed by more than 90% the found in the central zone of the canton.