Monitoramento da qualidade de águas em programas de pagamento por serviços ambientais hídricos: Estudo de caso no município de São José dos Campos/SP

Abstract

In the last decade, it was found in Brazil an increase in the number of Payment for Environmental Services (PES) programs focused on quantitative and qualitative conservation of waters in the territories. Among the main demands for improvement of these programs, there is a need to proof the provided ecosystem services. It is in this context that the present research was developed to evaluate the directives of water quality monitoring in watershed covered by PES and to assess the applicability of these to the watershed of the Couves Stream in São José dos Campos, São Paulo. For this applied research, besides the bibliographical research on the subject, a historical research in the documents of the Municipal Secretary of Environment and a monthly analysis of the water quality data provided by municipal utility were performed. From the results, it was verified that, at present, the Couves Stream waters do not meet the limits of Class 1 for the parameter Escherichia coli. At its various stages, PES demands differentiated monitoring conditions in relation to the number of sampling points and the frequency of analysis. Finally, even understanding the characterization of all parameters that compose the Water Quality Index (WQI) as essential, this study showed a minimum set of indicators for assessing the increases of water quality in watersheds covered by PES.