Qualidade da água de abastecimento público do município de Abaetetuba, estado do Pará

Abstract

Due to the growing exploitation of groundwater for various purposes, the use of Water Quality Indexes (WQI) as complementary instruments in assessing the quality and characterization of water sources has been showing satisfactory, making it a very useful tool to facilitate the communication between professionals and the interested population’s comprehension about this subject. With this in mind, this work aims to characterize the public water supply system and to assess the quality of groundwater used to supply the municipality of Abaetetuba - PA. Three Quality Indices were applied, in this case, the Natural Groundwater Quality Index (NGQI), the Groundwater Quality Index (GQI) and the Relative Quality Index (RQI). With the results of water quality parameters and the well depth, provided by the company responsible for supplying the municipality, it was possible to identify the indices for all wells. Highlighted the wells the neighborhood called Algodoal and Water Treatment Station (WTS), which obtained as result for NGQI, slightly lower (“good”), whereas in the water of the WTS’s well, the result was also slightly lower (“acceptable”) for IQAS, and considerably lower (“Terrible”) for the IRQ, possibly due to the high concentration of nitrate (14 mg.L-1) in the water of the WTS’s well. However, for the most part, the wells used in the catchment have water with satisfactory quality.