Temporal and spatial trend analysis of surface water quality in the Doce River basin, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Micael de Souza Fraga (), Demetrius David Silva (), Guilherme Barbosa Reis (), Hugo Alexandre Soares Guedes () and Abrahão Alexandre Alden Elesbon ()
Additional contact information
Micael de Souza Fraga: Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV)
Demetrius David Silva: Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV)
Guilherme Barbosa Reis: Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV)
Hugo Alexandre Soares Guedes: Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel)
Abrahão Alexandre Alden Elesbon: Instituto Federal do Espírito Santo (IFES)

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2021, vol. 23, issue 8, No 48, 12124-12150

Abstract: Abstract In Brazil, specifically in the Doce River basin, there is still a great lack of studies on temporal and spatial trends in water quality, since the water quality in the monitoring campaigns is basically evaluated when it comes down to the concentrations of monitored variables. In this sense, the objective of this work was to perform a temporal and spatial trend analysis of water quality data in the Minas Gerais portion of the Doce River basin, Brazil. For this, the Mann–Kendall, seasonal Mann–Kendall and Spearman correlation tests were used in the temporal analysis and the cluster analysis in the spatial analysis. In the analysis of temporal trends, the analyses were performed using the values of the National Sanitation Foundation Water Quality Index (NSFWQI) and the variables that compose it. In the analysis of spatial trends, the stations were evaluated only based on the WQI. With the results of the analysis of temporal trend, it was identified that most stations did not present a statistically significant trend for the WQI. In the stations that presented trends of quality reduction, most of them are in densely populated areas, demonstrating the strong influence of the poor sanitary conditions of the municipalities to the water quality of the basin. When analyzing the variables that compose the WQI, the results found for nitrate demonstrated that water quality deterioration is also affected by the diffuse pollution originating from farming areas. The results for Escherichia coli reinforced the impact of the discharge of domestic effluents and demonstrated the absence of a significative trend is still of concern because it can represent the maintenance of a degradation state in the water bodies. In the spatial trend analysis, the CA grouped the monitoring stations into six clusters based on their similarity among the WQI values, and, together with the results of the other analyses, it was verified that the Caratinga River basin (UGRH5 Caratinga) presented the highest degree of pollution. It was also possible to identify five stations that can be reallocated or deactivated since they have similarities with other stations located in the same watercourse.

Keywords: Cluster analysis; Doce River; Monitoring network; Trend analysis; Water pollution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-020-01160-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:23:y:2021:i:8:d:10.1007_s10668-020-01160-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-020-01160-8

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().