Modelo matemático de calidad de agua aplicado en la microcuenca del río Tabacay

Water is nowadays one of most valued natural resources; maintaining its quality is currently one of the main objectivesof the public administrations that exert control over it. For this purpose, some tools such as water quality models havebeen created in order to allow a proper management of this resource. A water quality model has been developed for theTabacay micro river basin because of its high social and institutional value, as it is the only water provision source for thecity of Azogues and is subjected to high pollution levels caused by livestock, agriculture and lack of sanitation systems. Todevelop the model, the free software of the US Environmental Protection Agency called Water Quality Analysis SimulationProgram (WASP) is used. In order to achieve the final model development, the available information of water quality, aswell as water flow and geometry of the area are analyzed and evaluated; the parameters and constants to be used in thesimulations are established depending on the system being analyzed, in the first results, variations of the simulated valueswith respect to the measured ones were observed, which is why the use of techniques for the depuration of water qualitymodels applied to Ecuadorian Andean areas are suggested, with the intent of reducing the error degree in the simulations,by means of the application of new studies for determining the appropriate parameters and methodologies that allow toattain models which can be applicable to these areas.