CHGeo: Alteração na geoquímica de aquíferos causada pela urbanização e implicações para a vulnerabilidade à contaminação
2017 - atual
Urbanization is a global and current phenomenon. More than 50% of the world population lives in urban centers, which radically alters the water cycles, often causing not planned impacts in the environment and, consequently high economic, ecological and social damage. The cities, rather than concentrate various activities, can contaminate or modify the environmental geochemistry, thus creating a new urban metabolism. When thinking about sustainable cities, the theme of urban geochemistry stands as one of the emerging areas of greatest importance for the Earth sciences. Thus, the overall objective of the project is to understand the changes the urban settlement will have on the hydraulic, geochemical and aquifer vulnerability to contamination, allowing a comprehensive and integrated evaluation of the new hydrogeological environment imposed by the cities. The study will closely examine the aquifer as a component of the urban cycle. Its social importance is justified by the following facts: 1) groundwater is the source for public supply of 42% of the Brazil population, as well as 80% of municipalities of the state of São Paulo; 2) the impacts of urbanization is still a poorly studied phenomenon, although, at the recent Conference of Parties COP21, it was considered to be a priority; 3) vulnerability mapping of aquifer contamination is a very conceptually attractive instrument for water management, however it needs improvement in order to be widely used in urban planning; and 4) the global climate changes alter the water availability and consumption patterns, requiring responses regarding occupation adaptations. The scientific originality lies in the following points: 1) integrated geochemistry in cities is a new topic that has not been studied so far in the country, and its understanding can only move forward if the new urban metabolism is thoroughly studied and incorporates geochemical techniques, such as isotope analysis; and 2) aquifer vulnerability to contamination methods still lack validation and scientific support, in order to allow advance in the understanding of the involved main phenomena associated with transport and contaminant behavior. The project will take place in the city of Urânia, Northwest of São Paulo, for which land occupation and geological information, based on borehole geophysical profiling, and data on the current and historical geochemistry, indicating geochemical variations in the subsurface, are available. The project is supported by the CNPq Universal Call, which this researcher is a coordinator and also counts on the participation of researchers from University of Calgary (Canada) UFOP, IG-SMA and CEPAS|USP.
Integrantes: Ricardo Hirata, Veridiana Martins, Rafael Terada, Paulo Galvão, Cathy Ryan.
Financiador(es): Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - Auxílio financeiro.