Proposal of an irrigation water quality index (IWQI) for regional use in the Federal District, Brazil
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Proposal of an irrigation water quality index (IWQI) for regional use in the Federal District, Brazil Daphne H. F. Muniz Jorge E. F. W. Lima
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Juaci V. Malaquias & Eduardo C. Oliveira-Filho
Received: 3 June 2020 / Accepted: 24 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract The present study aimed to propose a water quality index (WQI) for the Federal District, Brazil, as a management tool for water resources used in irrigation. Irrigated agriculture is a sector that has been growing in the region, with a consequent demand for quality water. One strategy for assessing water quality in rural areas is to adopt monitoring programs, which generate a large amount of data that often needs to be synthesized. The use of indexes is a way of organizing data in a synthetic and easy to understand format. Although initially formulated to assess the quality of drinking water, it is believed that a similar logic can easily be applied to assess the quality of irrigation water. Studies that evaluate the quality of water for irrigation are very common in arid or semi-arid regions, due to the problems of saline water in the soil and crops. On the other hand, the microbiological approach to water is poorly investigated, since contamination of crops can pose a risk to food security. In this work, three water bodies were selected in rural areas due to their preponderant use: irrigation. The monitoring occurred between May 2012 and April 2013 in 9 sampling points. For each sample collected, 22 physical, chemical, and biological parameters were established. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used in the evaluation and selection of water quality variables to compose the
D. H. F. Muniz (*) : J. V. Malaquias : J. E. F. W. Lima : E. C. Oliveira-Filho Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, Embrapa Cerrados, Planaltina, DF 73310-970, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]
WQI. From PCA, it was possible to reduce the number of parameters from 16 to 6 main ones that reflect the water resources characteristics in the region, which were pH, electrical conductivity, total hardness, sodium absorption ratio, nitrate, and Escherichia coli. Of the five classes proposed for WQI, two points were classified as “very good.” The other sample points were classified as “good” and “average” for the irrigation practice. The adapted WQI proved to be a good tool in the management of the water quality of the three rivers, and it can be easily used to assess the quality of water for irrigation in the region. Keywords Irrigation . Multivariate analysis . WQI
Introduction Water plays a key role in maintaining human health and in the economy. To ensure the sustainable use of water resources in the future, enabling continued agricultural development is a growing concern. It is estimated that food production via irrigated agriculture will increase by more than 50% by 2050 to meet the food needs of a growing global population (FAO 2017). Brazil is among the ten countries with the largest area equipped for irrigation in the world, and it is es
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