Evaluación de la calidad de agua del embalse Mazar, localizado entre las comunidades de Sacre y Chaullayacu

Abstract

Water quality in reservoirs are of vital importance, as they serve not only as a source for feeding hydroelectric projects but also as water reservoirs for subsequent treatment, human consumption, and irrigation purposes. These reservoirs can suffer deterioration due to human activity, for which institutions and researchers have developed water quality indexes to determine the condition in which they actually are. The Water Quality Index (WQI) developed by the National Sanitation Foundation of the United States, in conjunction with Montoya's water quality index, that provides the main parameters to analyze when determining water quality. The objective of this study is to analyze the current condition of the Mazar reservoir through four samplings points planned, the samples were collected and analyzed every week for a period of four weeks, also the sampling points were georeferenced by means of a GPS application. The raw water samples were used for physicochemical and microbiological analyses based on INEN standards, in order to determine the water quality index (ICATEST) and evaluate the water quality of the reservoir. This assessment aimed to identify any significant variations in water quality, using the Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test for each sampling point and the reservoir as a whole. Additionally, we compared our results with current regulations in Ecuador, as provided by TULSMA, to recommend improvement actions that would protect the water resource represented by the reservoir.