Temporal Characterization of Water Quality of Rivers in Contrasting Zones of Two Watersheds in Veracruz, Mexico
Synopsis
Water quality is influenced by natural conditions and anthropogenic impacts along the zones of a watershed, being the human impact the most important factor due to pollution. In the state of Veracruz, Mexico, there are two important rivers that reach the Gulf of Mexico: La Antigua and Jamapa-Cotaxtla. In these rivers, there are people that have long term water quality monitoring activities, hence, the information generated can be used to understand the functioning of rivers in different zones of a watershed: Headwater at the highlands and floodplain at the lowlands. The objective of this work is to compare the water quality of both zones using information of physical, chemical, and microbiological parameters measured during the year of 2018 by community monitoring programs. We used a principal component analysis for detecting the most variable parameters and non-parametric analyses to detect significant differences for each measured parameter between the two zones. Also, we classified water quality according to different scales for different parameters. The results showed significant differences of water quality between the two zones of the watersheds, the highland river had the best quality. However, concentration of Escheria coli indicated pollution in both watersheds. We concluded that temperature, alkalinity, hardness, pH, and turbidity were traits of each region of the watersheds that respond to climatic seasons. The oxygen was severely depleted in the river at the lowland region of the Jamapa-Cotaxtla river most likely due to organic pollution, fecal contamination is constantly quite a problem affecting water quality in both zones of the watersheds.
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