Contribuições para monitoramento de balneabilidade em águas doces no Brasil

Abstract

CONAMA Resolution 274/2000 deals with the standard of bathing beaches and resorts in freshwater, establishing the monitoring of water quality weekly by analyzing the concentration of microbiological indicators (Escherichia coli and/or fecal coliform for freshwaters). Despite the publication of this resolution for more then10 years, in general, the monitoring of bathing beaches has been focused on the Brazilian coast, and the recreation in freshwaters left in was been left a background, regardless of their social, ecological and economical importance for a country with a wide availability and diversity in water resources such as Brazil. Moreover, the issue of freshwater recreation was not explored in depth in our country, and there are few publications in the area.This paper proposes the consolidation of guidelines for the monitoring of bathing in recreational fresh waters in Brazil, besides demonstrating the importance of monitoring and the elements and aspects of its implementation. A decision aid system was consolidated for setting priorities for monitoring the freshwater areas, using the results obtained with a Delphi survey conducted between July and October 2011, with 23 participants. The intention is that the work constitutes a tool to support the development of future projects related to the subject, including subsidies for setting priority areas for implementation of monitoring