Community based approach towards water quality restoration and pollution prevention of the Flores Creek (Uruguay)

Cecilia Tamara Avellán (1) , D. Rousseau (1) , J. Sganga (2) , P. Lens (1)

1 Department of Environmental Resources
2 Direccion Nacional de Recursos Naturales Renovables

The micro-river basin of the Flores Creek is an important source of aquifer recharge, which is the drinking water supply of the mid-sized town of Libertad in Southwestern Uruguay as well as the irrigation source of the surrounding rural area, However, it is strongly contaminated by municipal wastewater and dairy sewage. To mitigate this issue, an integrated river basin project based on technical and community approaches was initiated in 2008, raising awareness of the problems to relevant stake-holders and identifying the practically possible solutions. So far, some of the implemented measures are: a) Design and construction of a constructed wetland for one of the larger dairy farms, b) Active participation of the local rural school children in the water quality/level moni-toring, c) Integration of the data into the GIS based SWAT model (first time use in Uruguay) that will allow the prediction of the improvement of water quality and quantity following better management practices d) Increased monitoring of the water quality, the flow volume, the biodiversity and the water absorption capacity of the characteristic soils. Therefore, the initial foundation for a successful IRBM has been laid, some relevant changes have occurred (such as the CW) and future steps to be taken are being addressed (such as the cleanup of the municipal sewage treatment facility).

Mots clés: water quality; constructed wetlands; SWAT; dairy farms; Santa Lucia River

Domaines: Environnement et Société

Cecilia Tamara Avellán, D. Rousseau, J. Sganga, P. Lens. Community based approach towards water quality restoration and pollution prevention of the Flores Creek (Uruguay). 9th World Wide Workshop for Young Environmental Scientists WWW-YES-Brazil-2009: Urban waters: resource or risks?, Oct 2009, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. ⟨hal-00593451⟩