This publication provides guidance to water-sector decision makers and planners on how to deal with the quality dimension of groundwater resources management in the World Bank's client countries. There is growing evidence of increasing pollution threats to groundwater and some well-documented cases of irreversible damage to important aquifers. This guide has been produced in the belief that groundwater pollution hazard assessment must become an essential part of environmental best practice for water supply utilities. The guide is particularly relevant for the World Bank's Latin American and Caribbean Region, where many countries have initiated major changes to modernize their institutional and legal framework for water resources management, but may not yet have considered groundwater at the same level as surface water, because of lack of awareness and knowledge of groundwater issues and policy options.

The use of the residual waters in agriculture is an alternative in facing the challenge of increasing agricultural production and in controlling environmental contamination, but it can constitute a sanitary problem due to the numerous pathogens that may be present in these waters. For many years, the fecal coliforms now denominated termotolerants (CTT), have been employed as indicators of contamination but today, it is well-known that there is little relation between the presence of these coliforms and the incidence of pathogens. For this reason, in this study was undertaken in the stabilization lagoons at the University of Zulia. Besides the traditional indicators, the following microorganisms: enterobacterias (EB), fecal estreptococcus (EF), enterococcus (EC), heterótrofos (Het), coliphages of E. coli C and fungi were determined, following standard techniques, for the purpose of evaluating the operation of the system and its use for agricultural purposes. In the final effluent, the geometric averages were: CT 1,2x10(4) MPN/100 ml, CTT 8,0x10³ MPN/100 ml, EF 8,1x10¹ MPN/100 ml, EC 5,3x10¹ MPN/100 ml, Het 1,1x10(4) CFU/ml, E. coli C 5,7x10² PFU/ml and fungi 6,2x10² CFU/ml. It was demonstrated that despite high removal levels, 90% of the samples did not fulfill the requirement established by the OMS/OPS for residual waters to be used for irrigation purposes. | El uso de aguas residuales en agricultura es una alternativa para incrementar la producción agrícola y controlar la contaminación ambiental, pero puede constituir un problema sanitario debido a los numerosos patógenos que pueden estar presentes en ellas. Los coliformes fecales han sido empleados como indicadores de contaminación pero hoy, es bien conocido la poca relación que existe entre su presencia y la de los patógenos. Por este motivo, en este trabajo se determinaron, en las lagunas de estabilización de la Universidad del Zulia, además de los indicadores tradicionales, los siguientes microorganismos: enterobacterias (EB), estreptococos fecales (EF), enterococos (EC), heterótrofos (Het), colifagos de E.coli C y hongos, siguiendo las técnicas descritas en el Standard Methods for Examination of Water and Wastewater, con el fin de evaluar el funcionamiento del sistema para su uso con fines agrícolas. En el efluente final las medias geométricas determinadas fueron: CT 1,2x10(4) NMP/100 ml, CTT 8,0x10³ NMP/100 ml, EF 8,1x10¹ NMP/100 ml, EC 5,3x10¹ NMP/100 ml, Het 1,1x10(4) UFC/ml, E. coli C 5,7x10² UFP/ ml y Hongos 6,2x10² UFC/ml. Se demostró que el 90% de las muestras no cumplían con el requisito establecido por la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS), para aguas residuales a ser empleadas con fines de irrigación.

La presencia en el agua de virus entericos supone un riesgo para la salud, y los criterios bacteriologicos establecidos como indices de contaminacion fecal no protegen frente a infecciones de origen virico. Los metodos empleados para la deteccion de virus en aguas son costosos, laboriosos y lentos por lo que no es posible su uso rutinario. Para solventar estos problemas, se han propuesto a determinados bacteriofagos como organismos indicadores de la presencia de virus, aunque cada uno de ellos presenta diferentes ventajas e inconvenientes, no existiendo en la actualidad un organismo indicador universalmente aceptado para el control de virus en aguas. La aparicion de la reaccion en cadena de la polimerasa (PCR), y su aplicacion como metodo alternativo para la deteccion de microorganismos, ha revolucionado el diagnostico en microbiologia, ya que permite obtener excelentes resultados de sensibilidad y especificidad de un modo rapido. La aplicacion de esta tecnica al control de virus en aguas, resuelve totalmente los problemas derivados de los metodos tradicionales. Aunque quedan todavia muchos aspectos por desarrollar, la aparicion de innovaciones metodologicas en el campo de la PCR, el abaratamiento de su coste y el desarrollo de metodos de preparacion de las muestras que eliminen la presencia de inhibidores de la reaccion, permitiran en un futuro no muy lejano, emplearla rutinariamente en el control virologico del agua.

Water quality affects many aspects of water availability, from precluding use to societal perceptions of fit-for-purpose. Pathogen source and transport processes are drivers of water quality because they have been responsible for numerous outbreaks resulting in large economic losses due to illness and, in some cases, loss of life. Outbreaks result from very small exposure (e.g., less than 20 viruses) from very strong sources (e.g., trillions of viruses shed by a single infected individual). Thus, unlike solute contaminants, an acute exposure to a very small amount of contaminated water can cause immediate adverse health effects. Similarly, pathogens are larger than solutes. Thus, interactions with surfaces and settling become important even as processes important for solutes such as diffusion become less important. These differences are articulated in “Colloid Filtration Theory”, a separate branch of pore-scale transport. Consequently, understanding pathogen processes requires changes in how groundwater systems are typically characterized, where the focus is on the leading edges of plumes and preferential flow paths, even if such features move only a very small fraction of the aquifer flow. Moreover, the relatively short survival times of pathogens in the subsurface require greater attention to very fast (<10 year) flow paths. By better understanding the differences between pathogen and solute transport mechanisms discussed here, a more encompassing view of water quality and source water protection is attained. With this more holistic view and theoretical understanding, better evaluations can be made regarding drinking water vulnerability and the relation between groundwater and human health.