Spatial-temporal data model for GIS analysis of the quality of water in a watershed

Abstract

Geographic Information Systems are used to assist the environmental management. Among others, one of its functions is to manage the information about availability and condition of the natural resources. Those variables change from one place to another and throughout the time, so it is necessary to understand the dynamic of changes. This paper presents a space-time data model for GIS to identify the changes occurred in the quality of water in a basin and to relate them to the events and sources of pollution that has caused it. A study area was chosen in order to verify the efficiency of the model implementation which is the Barigüi River Basin and it is located at the Metropolitan Region of Curitiba, Parana State, Brazil. The water quality data used are related to the Biochemical Oxygen Demand - DBO5 parameter, which indicates the existence of domestic and industrial sewage in the rivers.