Temporal Evaluation for the Quality of Waters of the Los Guaos River of Santiago de Cuba

Abstract

The lack of maintenance, inadequate operations and poor control and monitoring of water quality, and little introduction of cleaner production practices by major polluting entities have caused great pollution of major river basins Santiago de Cuba. Among them, is the Los Guaos river which provides a high percentage of pollutant load to the Bay of Santiago. It is of interest to conduct a study to evaluate the water quality of this river, to establish their quality and potential use. Five monitoring stations were studied during the period from January to April. Twenty-three  physicochemical parameters and two microbiological parameters were determined. The results were compared with the Cuban Standards for drinking water supply, swimming and fishing and statistical methods were
used for evaluation. According to the results, these waters are polluted from near its source, which invalidates their use without treatment. These waters are affected by eutrophication.

Keywords: quality of water, fluvial ecosystem, Cuba.