Physical-chemical assessment of the waters from dessalinization process of salobros and salinos wells in rural communities of the west potiguar

Abstract

 The supply of drinking water is the biggest challenge of rural communities in semiarid region of Brazil, which are characterized by the scarcity of water resources suitable for human consumption. A trend a few years ago, the federal and state governments have sought to install desalination equipment of underground brackish water to generate fresh water to supply more distant communities from urban centers. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of water wells desalination process in rural communities from Potiguar West. This research was conducted between 2013 and 2014. At first, the communities which were supplied by catchment and treatment of desalinated water centers were registered through a cadastral survey. In order to do so, four data collection expeditions took place in different periods as well as the evaluation of a) the reverse osmosis treated water quality, b) the well, c) the reject brine Physicochemical attributes of water for irrigation was also analyzed. The waters were classified according to its use for irrigation; leakage risks and toxicity in plants In the monitored rural communities, the reversed osmosis water treatment stations produce desalinated water with low concentrations of salts, with 68% of all samples are in C₁S₁ rating class; 25% in C₂S₁ and class; only 7% in C₃S₁ class. Regarding the reject brine, 93% of waste water samples were classified as C₃ or C₄ during the four collecting periods, that is, at high or extremely high salinization risk