Influence of the anthropization on the quality of water bodies of medium order associated to rural landscapes of the Paraná River basin (Argentina).

LETICIA PELUSO; DEMETRIO, PABLO M.; BONETTO C.; APRIGLIANO N; FEDERICO RIMOLDI

Cartagen de Indias

Congreso; XIII SETAC Latin America Biennial Meeting. ?Industria, academia y gobierno para una sostenibilidad global; 2019

Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC)

Originally, rural landscapes wereconsidered geographic areas where anthropization was almostexclusively a result of agriculture and/or livestock (A/L) activities. Atpresent, while these activities continue to be predominant in those areas,urbanization and industrialization (U/I), have been assuming greaterrelevance, turning the rural areas into environmentally complex sectors.Therefore, the challenge of the environmental sciences is to finddiagnostic strategies to assess the environmental impacts of this newscenario. Since surface water bodies are the final recipients of thepollutants generated in a basin, the study of water and bottom sedimentquality is a informative approach to assessing the general environmentalstatus of an area. Within this context, the objective of this study--undertaken in the upper and middle sectors of the Argentine Paraná-River basin--was to evaluate the environmental impact of anthropizationon the water and sediment quality of water bodies of middle orderassociated with rural landscapes. Sampling sites corresponding to themouths of tributaries of the Paraná River were selected. Before thesampling campaign, the level of anthopization of each SS was estimatedfrom aspects related to U/I and A/L activities. At each SS, generalparameters of water quality were measured in situ and water andsediment samples taken for physical, chemical, microbiological andecotoxicological assessment. The samples' toxicity was evaluated by abattery of standardized bioassays (Daphnia magna, Hyalellacurvispina, and Lactuca sativa). The frequency of bioassays that shownsignificant effects respect to the control correlated strongly andpositively with anthropization. Lactuca sativa was sensitive to pollutantsof agricultural origin, while the crustaceans provided consistentresponses to the U/I pollutants. The combination of U/I and A/Lactivities increased the toxicologic complexity of the water bodies,producing in general greater adverse effects. Although, in the rural areasthe U/I activities represented a scale notably small in relation to A/L, thecontribution of that activity to the deterioration of the toxicologic qualityof water bodies appeared significant.