Plan de manejo para la recuperación ambiental del estero El Macho, cantón Machala

Abstract

This thesis presents a proposal for a management plan of the environmental recovery of the El Macho estuary in the city of Machala. The methodology used is the recommended one by the Environmental and Social Reparation Program of the environmental ministry of Ecuador, for which information was gathered about the current situation of the area of study. As a result, an assessment of the environmental impacts was made, using the Importance Matrix proposed by Conesa (1997), verifying that the most negative impacts for the area of research corresponded to the alteration of water quality due to direct discharges of domestic wastewater and the introduction of solid waste generated by the population. The next step was to find out the state of conservation of the ecosystem, to accomplished this the Water Quality Index of the National Sanitation Foundation (WQI-NSF) was used in four strategic points along the estuary during three sampling campaigns in the months of February, March and May, where dry and rainy weather conditions were present. Values of the WQI between 13.76 and 54.90 were obtained, which indicated that the water quality varies from "Very Bad" to "Medium", “Bad” being the predominant category in most of the results; in fact, it was found that the quality of the water is mostly affected by the fecal coliform and dissolved oxygen parameters, where extreme values like 2.2x108 MPN / 100 ml and 0.19 mg/l respectively were recorded. Finally, a plan was developed that presents actions recommendations for the recovery of water quality and the biodiversity in the estuary, as well as the appropriate management of solid waste and social development.