QUALITY STUDY OF WATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS MEETING HUMAN DEMANDS IN THE HYDROGRAPHIC BASIN OF RIO SERIDÓ: DEVELOPMENT OF AN INDICATOR AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE MUNICIPALITIES
Water availability. Multivariate Analysis.
The Brazil has one of the largest reserves of fresh water in the world, but there are regions with water scarcity, as is the case in the semi-arid region of the Brazilian Northeast. In this sense, in order to contribute to an adequate management of water resources, it is essential to carry out a diagnosis of the region to analyze the adequacy between water availability and demand. The objective of this work is to develop an indicator of the quality of water supply systems to meet human demands in the Seridó River Basin and to classify municipalities according to the water balance between availability and demand. For the development of the indicator two methodologies were used: multiple linear regression via Stepwise and regression by principal components for the choice of variables of the second model. We conclude that the model developed by the first methodology was the most representative for the Seridó River Basin. With water balance between demand and availability it was verified that more than 50% of the municipalities present this variable above the unit value. In this way, it becomes evident the need to collect information to plan actions that change this reality, based on the ranking of cities as a function of variables (s) that characterize municipalities in function of the quality of the systems water supply to meet their urban demands.