Groundwater in Rondonia: statistical analysis of hydrochemical, organoleptic and bacteriological data

Abstract

In order to improve the ongoing process of managing groundwaters in the State of Rondonia we collected the results of 384 physical-chemical and / or bacteriological analyses of wells on file in the 2nd Socio-Economic and Ecological Zonation of the State of Rondonia, Brazil - ZSEE / RO, submitted by localities. We then treated and reorganized these data according to hydrographic basins using spreadsheets. We sought to characterize the quality of groundwater in major watersheds of the state of Rondonia by considering physical (color, pH and turbidity), chemical (chloride, total iron, sulfate, oxygen consumption, total hardness, calcium hardness, magnesium hardness, total solids, nitrogen as nitrite, nitrogen as nitrate, free carbon dioxide and HCO3 alkalinity) and bacteriological (standard bacterial counts of most probable number of coliform bacteria, most probable number of fecal coliform bacterial, most probable number of colonies - membrane filter method) properties. In order to test the adjustment of the data obtained to a normal distribution, we used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov method, modified by Lilliefors. The study revealed that the groundwater analyzed had good physical-organoleptic properties; the basins of the Madeira and of the Machado rivers showed the greatest changes in pH values, chloride and nitrate, indicative of a loss of quality of groundwater resources depending on population density. The Abunan river basin revealed the highest risk of fecal contamination, with water samples generally showing results that exceeded the bacteriological standards, thus requiring treatment by chlorination or boiling and filtration before human consumption.