Author(s): Luisa Uribe
Linked Author(s): Luisa Fernanda Uribe Laverde
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: The largest city in Colombia, Bogota, is crossed from east to west by four rivers. All of them discharge their waters into the Bogota River. One of them, the Fucha River, originates in an exclusive ecosystem, Paramo Cruz Verde. The Fucha river was divided into four sections to evaluate its quality standards. The Instituto de Hidrologia, Meteorologia y Estudios Ambientales (IDEAM) established the General Quality Index for Surface Waters (ICACOSU), which evaluates quality in a range between Excelent to Very deficient. The Secretaria Distrital de Ambiente (SDA) established quality standards for the Fucha river 8 years ago. However, the measurements of water quality parameters and the indices show that the river does not reach the minimum standards for existence of captive life. We monitored 16 points and calculated ICACOSU for sections 1 to 3 of Fucha River. In particular, we found that Fucha river starts in good range and finishes in very deficient range. In particular, section 2 starts with a Medium range and ends in Bad range due to increase in total coliforms (TC) from 0.00 MPN/100 mL to 9.59x107 MPN/100 mL. On the other hand, section 3 starts with a bad range and ends in very deficient range due to reduction in concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) from 9.75 mg/L to 0.17 mg/L. The detailed study of the quality of the river allows establishing minimum values of parameters such as DO and TC that enable aquatic life in the water.
Year: 2022