Assessing Colorado River basin (Argentina) Water Quality Index for future river basin management

MARIANO TRILLINI; FEDERICO VALLESE; JORGE OMAR PIERINI

Congreso; AmeriGeo Week 2021; 2021

SG-SICA y Gobierno de El Salvador

TheWater Quality Index (WQI) has been developed to evaluate the water quality ofRio Colorado (RC) basin (Argentina). Water samples were collected monthly from8 stations during 2015?2021, and were analyzed: total dissolved solids, pH, SO4,Cl, CO3 and HCO3,Na,K,Ca,Mg, turbidity,total hardness and electrical conductivity. The objective of this study was toevaluate DWQI and livestock water quality index (LWQI) through calculation of aWQI (Weighted Arithmetic WQI method)which relates water physical-chemical composition with common drinking andlivestock water sources.  The DWQI isgood for drinking at the first station and poor at rest of stations, but at allsampling points the river water was found to be suitable for livestock. The SPIindex (1966-2021) was considered to quantify the rainfall deficit for 12-monthtimescale and trend analysis (Mann-Kendall test), showed a significant negativetrend in annual rainfall and its influence on the WQ and streamflow river(GeoGlows data).