Study of point and diffuse pollution in the Funil reservoir hydropower plant contribution basin using spatially distributed Geographic Information System modeling

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated the potential polluter of the Funil Reservoir Contribution Basin (BCRF), located in the Paraíba do Sul River basin, considering the generation of nutrient loading, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), due to point and diffuse sources from a distributed modeling using Geographic Information System (GIS). Loads and annual average concentrations of these nutrients were generated from the coupling of empirical equations, in GIS, considering spatial information such as land use/cover, population living in the basin and long period average annual flow obtained by equations of rainfall runoff. The results indicated that 80% of the total load of nitrogen was generated from point sources and 20% from diffuse sources, while 89.1% were originated from point sources and 10.9% from diffuse sources for the corresponding total load of phosphorus. The model estimated adequately the concentration when compared to the ​​observed values and it was able to detect the trend of changes in nutrient concentrations along different sections of the BCRF highlighting significant correlations between the observed and simulated concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen with R²=0.96 (p<0.01) and R²=0.70 (p<0.01), respectively.

Keywords:
water pollution; geoprocessing; watershed; nutrients.