Integração ecológica de indicadores ambientais e de saúde pública na Bacia do Rio das Velhas - Minas Gerais

Abstract

The goal of this study was the integration of the water quality and human health indicators in the urban sub-basins in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state. A multiple approach was adopted including physical and chemical parameters; biological indicators (benthic macroinvertebrates); human health index (infant mortality rate; childhood diseases) and land use. Moreover, thematic maps were constructed by geoprocessing softwares, showing the percentage of urbanization, vegetation and impervious areaaround each sub-basin, and also infant mortality and childhood diseases occurrences in the study period. The indicators were associated to each other using a statistical analysis multivariate regression (General Linear Models), by the Poisson distribution. It showed that infant mortality rate was not associated with any water quality parameters. The childhood diseases were associated (p < 0.05, r2 = 0.1849) with Total Nitrogen andDissolved Oxygen parameters. The benthic macroinvertebrate richness variated (p < 0,01, r2 = 0.7223) with the percentage of impervious area and natural channel. The results showed that the water quality is associated with diseases occurring in the population and the land use influenced the composition of aquatic communities. The integration of multiple indicators in determining the situation of public health is acontribution to sanitation programs. Also, thematic maps are a powerful instrument of analysis and visual comprehension of the situation of urban sub-basins. The multiple indicators avaliation included abiotic, biological, epidemic and geografic factors proved that they are necessary to a more realistic understanding of the degradation process in urban rivers and its implication to the public health in Belo Horizonte city.