Water and health risk assessment in the Aracaju Expansion Zone-SE

Abstract

The Aracaju Expansion Zone presents problems related to lack of water in adequate conditions of quantity and quality. The low purchasing power of the local community has led residents to excavate shallow wells in their homes to ensure water supply, the only alternative for domestic consumption, but untreated. The objective of this work was to evaluate the quality of well water and the scenarios of health risk, through microbiological analyses. The collections were carried out in the period from December 2015 to August 2017, according to the methodology established by Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 21st ed. It was concluded that in the rainy season, the well water presents contamination by coliforms, heterotrophic bacteria, Staphylococcus aureos and sulfite reducing bacteria, while in the dry season most of the samples did not present bacteriological counts.