A Method for Environmental Data Management Applied to Megasites in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

The management of contaminated areas with multiple sources of contamination (megasites) is among the biggest challenges for the Brazilian environmental agencies, especially because aquifers in big urban areas, like the Sao Paulo Met-ropolitan Region, are important sources of water for human supply purposes. One of the main reasons that hamper the proper management of urban envi-ronmental problems is a lack of a unified system where all information can be easily integrated into regional studies. To address this problem, a method for data integration and management using a Geographic Information System (GIS) was developed. This method was applied to the case of a regional conta-mination of an aquifer by chlorinated solvents at a former industrial district in Sao Paulo city, named Jurubatuba, but the final product might also be used for data management of contaminated areas for the entire State of Sao Paulo. The main result obtained was that the site-by-site approach for aquifer contamina-tion management is ineffective. Furthermore, there are many other suspected and potential sources of contamination without any information available after more than 10 years since the contamination problem was discovered at the FIZ 131.