El sector floricultor colombiano ha crecido exponencialmente durante las últimas tres décadas, se ha tecnificado y organizado, por ende se ha convertido en una de las industrias agrícolas que más empleo genera por unidad de área (Sociedad de Agricultores de Colombia, 2002), junto a su crecimiento exponencial, se viene presentando gran demanda de recursos hídricos, ya que, para producir aproximadamente 225.000 toneladas de flores se requieren 94.535.000 m3 de agua (Villalobos Castellanos & Villalobos Castellanos), así mismo la demanda de calidad del agua para los diferentes procesos que se manejan dentro de la industria se han intensificado, ya que los sellos ambientales que certifican la producción agrícola sostenible así lo requirieren, es el caso de uno de los sellos ambientales más importantes RAINFOREST ALLIANCE “The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land - use practices, business practices and consume behavior.”, “Rainforest Alliance trabaja para conservar la biodiversidad y garantizar medios de vida sostenibles mediante la transformación de las prácticas de uso de la tierra, las prácticas comerciales y el comportamiento de consumo.”, los criterios para obtener la certificación de este sello socio-ambiental enfocados en el recurso hídrico, es el de la conservación del agua y de la calidad del agua para su utilización en actividades directamente relacionadas con los objetivos de la industria floricultora o para consumo humano (Rainforest Alliance, Norma para la Agricultura Sostenible, 2017). | The Colombian flower sector has grown exponentially during the last three decades, it has become more technical and organized, therefore it has become one of the agricultural industries that generates the most employment per unit area (Sociedad de Agricultores de Colombia, 2002), together with Due to its exponential growth, there has been a great demand for water resources, since, to produce approximately 225,000 tons of flowers, 94,535,000 m3 of water are required (Villalobos Castellanos & Villalobos Castellanos), as well as the demand for water quality for the different processes that are handled within the industry have intensified, since the environmental seals that certify sustainable agricultural production require it, as is the case of one of the most important environmental seals RAINFOREST ALLIANCE “The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land - use practices, business practices and consume behavior.”, “Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land use practices, business practices and consumer behavior.”, the criteria for obtaining certification of this socio-environmental seal focused in water resources, it is the conservation of water and water quality for use in activities directly related to the objectives of the flower industry or for human consumption (Rainforest Alliance, Standard for Sustainable Agriculture, 2017).

Colombia cuenta con una gran riqueza biogeográfica y de recursos hídricos, constituyendo estadísticamente una buena oferta de agua para los habitantes, sin embargo la calidad del recurso y la sobrepoblación de áreas específicas conllevan a la escasez en el suministro de agua, haciendo importante el seguimiento y monitoreo de la calidad de cuerpos loticos para garantizar una adecuada planificación y gestión de este recurso vital. Teniendo en cuenta la importancia de esta temática, se realizó una revisión bibliográfica a fin de revisar las metodologías y resultados en materia de calidad de agua de algunos de los ríos más caudalosos del país, que entre otras cosas evidencia la necesidad de inversión, organización y articulación de las políticas, estrategias, planes y protocolos implementados en el país a fin de armonizar las metodologías dentro y fuera de la nación, a fin de promover y permitir un desarrollo económico y social basado en la conservación y uso eficiente del recurso hídrico. | Colombia has a big biogeographic richness as well as hydric resources, meaning a good statistically provision of water supplies for the habitants, nonetheless, the quality of the resource and the overpopulation in specific areas produce a shortage in the water supplies, making important the river’s water quality monitoring and tracing activities for guarantee the correct management and planning of this vital resource. Considering the importance of this topic, a bibliographic review was done, in order to check the water quality methodologies and results for some of the most flowing rivers of the country, that between other things it’s evidence of the need of investment, organization and articulation of the politics, strategies, plans and protocols used in the country to be able to harmonize the methodologies in and outside the nation, with the purpose of promote and allow a social and economic develop based on the efficient used and conservation of the hydric resource.

Water quality monitoring is used to determine the impact of human activities on the environment. We evaluated water quality in the Água Boa stream, located within the municipality of Dourados, State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, by analyzing physico-chemical, chemical, and microbiological parameters, as well as chlorophyll concentrations. Five sets of water samples were collected between December 2012 and November 2013 from three locations within the stream. The results showed the presence of Escherichia coli and antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas spp. strains and high concentrations of organic matter (total dissolved solids), inorganic species (Mg, Ca, and Fe), and agrochemical residues (thiamethoxam). The main stream water contaminants are derived from urban, industrial, and agricultural activities within the watershed. Given the presence of contaminants, it is important that such findings are disseminated in order to highlight the risks that contact with this water may pose to human health. To preserve the environment and improve site conditions, people would need to participate by demanding that normative national and international standards be respected and that the situation be supervised by the competent governmental agencies; this would make it possible to reverse or minimize contamination problems within the Água Boa stream.

Quality of natural waters is dependent on geomorphological and edaphoclimatic characteristics of each watershed. These characteristics provide a pattern of regularity in water quality over time, affected by season and rain intensity. The variation in water quality is influenced, mainly, by anthropic actions. The population development is conditioned to the presence of water, negatively impacting the environmental quality, due to high polluting loads that return to water courses. In the agricultural environment, application of high doses of inputs may degrade water quality since these inputs can be lost by leaching or surface runoff. The objective of this dissertation was to understand hydrosedimentological factors and processes that influence water quality of a small rural watershed with intense changes in land use and management, to search for monitoring techniques capable of better identifying spatiotemporal changes in the evaluated parameters. Monitoring was divided into three strategies. The first one had the objective of evaluating surface and groundwater characteristics of the rainy season, with a monthly interval for approximately one year. During this period, water supplied to the rural community was also evaluated, comparing the characteristics of water from three sources with the national legislation standards. Considering the influence of surface runoff on water quality, the second period had the objective of identifying changes in water quality characteristics during rainfall events, also characterizing the scale effect during monitoring. The third period was to evaluate historical data of the long period, low sampling frequency monitoring in the watershed. The parameters that most interfere in the variation of the surface and ground water quality during the base flow were the biological parameters, phosphorus and the turbidity, which are above the standard established by the current legislation CONAMA 357 for most of the analyses. During rainfall events, the behavior of some parameters of water quality changes significantly with the hydrograph and sedimentograph, also varying according to the area of contribution for each sampling point. The main parameters that increased along with the hydrograph rise were turbidity, total and soluble P, Fe and K; Cu and Zn parameters showed no variation during the event; while total dissolved solids and oxidation potential presented a dilution behavior. The identification of changes in water quality according to changes in soil use and management for the studied basin was not possible through the use of low-frequency monitoring. Studies using the monitoring of variable scales, with multiparameter probes, sub-daily discretization and during events are stimulated by allowing the best characterization of the process, allowing modeling to propose scenarios indicating the main sources of pollution and helping in the definition of practices capable of reducing environmental degradation | Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES | A qualidade das águas naturais é dependente das características geomorfológicas e edafoclimáticas de cada bacia hidrográfica. Essas características proporcionam um padrão de regularidade na qualidade da água ao longo do tempo, conforme as estações do ano e intensidades pluviais. A variação na qualidade da água é influenciada, principalmente, por ações antrópicas. O desenvolvimento populacional é condicionado à presença de água, impactando de forma negativa a qualidade ambiental, devido às elevadas cargas poluentes que retornam ao curso hídrico. No ambiente agrícola, a aplicação de altas doses de insumos implica em deterioração da qualidade da água, pois esses insumos podem ser perdidos por lixiviação ou por escoamento superficial. Nesta dissertação, objetivou-se compreender os fatores e processos hidrossedimentológicos que influenciam na qualidade da água de uma pequena bacia hidrográfica rural com intensa alteração de uso e manejo do solo, para buscar técnicas de monitoramento capazes de melhor identificar as alterações espaço-temporais nos parâmetros avaliados. O monitoramento foi dividido três estratégias. O primeiro teve como objetivo avaliar as características de águas superficiais e subterrâneas provenientes do período intereventos pluviais, com intervalo mensal durante aproximadamente um ano. Nesse período, também foram avaliadas a água que abastece a comunidade rural, comparando assim as características das três fontes com a legislação nacional. Considerando a influência do escoamento superficial sobre a qualidade da água, o segundo período teve como objetivo identificar as alterações de características de qualidade da água durante intraeventos pluviais, caracterizando também o efeito de escala durante o monitoramento. O terceiro período objetivou avaliar os dados históricos do monitoramento de longo período e baixa frequência de amostragem realizado na bacia em estudo. Os parâmetros que mais interferiram na variação da qualidade da água superficial e subterrânea durante o escoamento de base foram os parâmetros biológicos, o fósforo e a turbidez, sendo esses acima do padrão estabelecido pela legislação vigente CONAMA n° 357 para a maior parte das análises. Em eventos de chuva, o comportamento de alguns parâmetros da qualidade da água sofre alteração significativa com o hidrograma e sedimentograma, variando também conforme a área de contribuição de cada ponto. Os principais parâmetros que aumentaram junto com a ascensão do hidrograma foram a turbidez, P total e solúvel, Fe e K; os parâmetros Cu e Zn não apresentaram variação durante o evento; enquanto os sólidos totais dissolvidos e o potencial de oxirredução apresentaram comportamento de diluição. A identificação das alterações da qualidade da água conforme as mudanças de uso e manejo do solo para a bacia estudada não foi possível por meio da utilização do monitoramento de baixa frequência. Estudos utilizando o monitoramento de escalas variáveis, com sondas multiparâmetros, discretização sub-diária e durante eventos devem ser estimulados por possibilitar a melhor caracterização do processo, permitindo a aplicação de modelagem para elaboração de cenários, indicando as principais fontes de poluição e auxiliando na definição de práticas capazes de amortizar o processo de degradação.

The irrigated rice contributes immensely in water consumption in Brazil. Wuth intention of inducing its rational use, the country has juridical and institutional procedures, including the granting of water use. However, the effectiveness of this instrument it is necessary the control of the granted volumes. Thus, looking instruments to quantify these volumes and can serve as possible supervisory of the granted volumes, one of them is self-monitoring. Thus, the study aims to contribute to the management of water resources, seeking to validate a simplified and cost-effective for self-monitoring of the water volumes used in rice fields. The study was implemented in São Pedro do Sul county in the 2013/14 season, where were performed self-monitoring by means of triangular weirs on two rice plots, one with uptake in river and dam in another. The areas of these plots are 2.6 ha and 27.0 ha, respectively. To validate and simplify the system of self-monitoring, sought to evaluate whether two daily measurements of hydraulic head over the spillways are sufficient to represent the possible variations in the channels and estimate the total volume of water used by the rice crop. The evaluation was performed using the parametric Student's t test for a mean in order to compare the actual and the estimated volume by two measurements. To define the charge passing through the hydraulic structure and defines the flow when applied to the spillway key curve was used graduated rulers and automatic level sensors Solinst ®. For quantification of water intake in rice fields by precipitation, a rain gauge was used, and this precipitation was added to the volume irrigated to define the total volume of water demanded in each area. For both plots monitored, the actual volume and the estimated two measurements showed no significant difference to the significance level of 0.05. The volumes used by crops monitored in this season, showed the average of two parcels an irrigated volume 16% lower than the grantee. In short, the quantification of the volume used in rice crops, through self-monitoring system proposed, with simplified methods of flow measurement, in the different arrangements of irrigation presented, was suitable for use in large-scale measurement of volumes granted, as subsidy for water resources management. Self-monitoring by means of triangular weirs, with the realization of just two daily measurements of the spillways levels is efficient to estimate the total volume of water demanded by rice fields, presenting satisfactory representation of the daily variation in water level observed in the channels. The study also demonstrates that the data collected by the sensors are more precise than the data defined by the level of water in the graduated rulers, but even with the use of these lower accuracy is satisfactory. | Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior | A cultura do arroz irrigado contribui imensamente no consumo de água no Brasil. Com intuito de induzir o uso racional desta, o país possui procedimentos jurídicos e institucionais, entre eles a outorga de uso da água. Contudo, para efetividade deste instrumento é necessário fiscalização dos volumes outorgados. Desta maneira, procura-se instrumentos para quantificar estes volumes e servir como possível fiscalizador dos volumes outorgados. Um deles é o automonitoramento. Com isso, o estudo realizado tem por objetivo contribuir para a gestão de recursos hídricos, buscando validar um sistema simplificado e de baixo custo para o automonitoramento dos volumes de água utilizados nas lavouras orizícolas. O estudo foi implantado no munícipio de São Pedro do Sul na safra de 2013/14, onde se realizou o automonitoramento por meio de vertedores triangulares em duas parcelas de arroz irrigado, uma com captação em rio e outra em barragem. As áreas destas parcelas são de 2,6 ha e 27,0 ha, respectivamente. Para validar e simplificar o sistema de automonitoramento buscou avaliar se duas medições diárias da carga hidráulica sobre os vertedores são suficientes para representar as possíveis variações nos canais e estimar o volume total de água utilizado pela lavoura orizícola. A avaliação foi realizada por meio do teste paramétrico t de Student para uma média, afim de, comparar o volume estimado por todos os dados diários de vazão (volume real) e o volume estimado por duas medições diárias. Para a definição da carga hidráulica que passa pela estrutura e define a vazão quando aplicada a curva chave do vertedor, utilizou-se réguas graduadas e sensores automáticos de nível da marca SOLINST®. Para a quantificação da entrada de água na lavoura por precipitação, foi utilizado um pluviômetro, sendo que este volume precipitado encontrado foi somado ao volume irrigado para definir o volume total de água demandado em cada área. Para as duas parcelas monitoradas, o volume real e o estimado por duas medições não tiveram diferença significativa para o nível de significância de 0,05. Os volumes utilizados pelas lavouras monitoradas, nesta safra, apresentaram na média das duas parcelas um volume irrigado 16% menor que o outorgado. Em suma, a quantificação do volume utilizado em lavouras orizícolas, por meio do sistema de automonitoramento com métodos simplificados de medição de vazão propostos, nos diferentes arranjos de irrigação apresentados, mostrou-se adequado para uso em grande escala para aferição dos volumes outorgados, como subsídio à gestão de recursos hídricos. Ainda, o automonitoramento por meio de vertedores triangulares, com a realização de apenas duas medições diárias dos níveis dos canais adutores é eficiente na estimativa do volume total de água demandado pela cultura de arroz irrigado, apresentando representatividade satisfatória da variação diária no nível de água verificado nos canais. O estudo também demonstra que os dados levantados pelos sensores apresentam maior precisão que os dados definidos pelo nível da água nas réguas graduadas, mas mesmo com menor precisão o uso destas é satisfatório.

Nitrogen (N) pollution in shallow groundwater within the Jianghan Plain—a depositional basin along the Yangtze River in China—is a serious issue affecting the local water supply. There is little concern regarding temporal variation patterns of groundwater N in regions with intensive groundwater/surface-water interactions thus far. In this study, a 2-year field monitoring program and a set of incubation experiments were jointly applied to characterize the seasonal variation mechanisms of groundwater N. Groundwater monitoring suggested that temporal N variations in monitoring wells of 25 and 10-m depth were correlated with fluctuations in water levels, with lower NH₄-N and higher NO₃⁻-N concentrations corresponding to groundwater discharge during the dry season, and with higher NH₄-N and lower NO₃⁻-N concentrations corresponding to groundwater recharge during the wet season. Batch sediment incubation experiments showed that buried organic carbon in sediments from the field site could not promote NH₄-N release, but exogenous organic carbon and oxidant input could catalyze organic N mineralization, resulting in NH₄-N release. Nevertheless, NO₃⁻-N release was limited in all incubations. Thus, the temporal variation patterns could be divided into (1) groundwater N in type-1 wells (25 and 10 m), controlled by the annual reversal of groundwater flow gradient, which determined whether there was input of exogenous organic carbon or oxidants, ultimately affecting organic N mineralization, denitrification and other transformation processes, and (2) groundwater N in type-2 wells (<4 m depth), which showed no significant seasonal variation, implying the process is mainly controlled by surface inputs in the shallower subsurface.

Groundwater is an extensive, concealed and inaccessible resource, and (in contrast to surface water) changes in quantity and quality are often very slow processes occurring below large land areas. These changes cannot be determined by simple one-off snapshot surveys alone, and require more elaborate monitoring networks and data interpretation. The primary goal of aquifer management is to control the impacts of groundwater abstraction and contaminant loads, and monitoring aquifer response and quality trends provide key inputs for this goal. The evaluation of groundwater issues and the implementation of management solutions require hydrogeological data that are in part baseline and in part time-variant in character-the collection of the time-variant component is what is usually considered groundwater monitoring. Groundwater monitoring thus comprises the collection, analysis and storage of a range of data on a regular basis according to specific circumstances and objectives.