Manejo integral de la microcuenca hidrográfica del río La Chimba para la captación del recurso hídrico para abastecimiento de agua de consumo humano de la parroquia Olmedo, cantón Cayambe

Abstract

The volcanoes in Ecuador are one of the principal sources of natural resources that contribute to the availability of hydric resources in the country. The river Chimba is an effluent and micro-watershed of the Cayambe volcano. This river finds itself affected by the activities of the communities that inhabit said effluent due to the pollution produced principally by the agricultural and livestock sectors. In this investigation, the micro-watershed is divided into the upper, middle, and lower sections, dependent upon their altitude. One problem that the community faces is the contamination of this water. Because of this, one monitoring point was established in each of the three sections, where analyses regarding physical, chemical, and biological parameters were taken. The analyzed parameters were compared to recent regulations established in Ecuador and by international organizations, ensuring that they do not exceed permissible limits as represented in tables and graphs. Once these results have been obtained, the existence of anthropic alterations could be confirmed, including within protected areas, as is the case of Cayambe National Park in the upper region of the micro-watershed. Due to these anthropic alterations, there exists the need to implement measures of ecological protection based on management plans. The surveillance and monitoring plan established due to the results obtained by this analysis, both in situ as well as in the laboratory, makes it so that the community and students from the Polytechnic University Salesian can avoid the deterioration of these ecosystems by progressively mitigating negative environmental impacts.