Evaluating total nitrogen and phosphorous concentrations in a watershed impacted by diverse anthropic activities in a developing country

This research aims to identify critical contamination points by nutrients, their possible origin (point and nonpoint sources), their spatial distribution, and possible attenuation by natural and anthropogenic processes. The study area is the Velhas River Basin, located in the Southeast Region of Brazil (17.0°–20.5° S; 43.5°–45.0°W). A historical series of water quality monitoring, land cover map, demographic and agricultural censuses, sewage treatment diagnostics, and local hydrographic networks were used to achieve the objectives. In addition, the regions were divided into incremental areas, enabling individualized analyses of each sub-basin. Descriptive statistics, seasonality, categorized data tests, agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis, and principal component analysis were used. There was a significant contribution of nutrients in the most important urban agglomeration of the basin, resulting in peak concentrations measured at that place. Although the values were reduced by the mouth (650 km), the percentage of legislation violations remained high. The effects of punctual contamination were intensified by the low percentage of treated sewage in the basin, the absence of adequate treatment technologies to remove nutrients, and the disorderly urbanization. Furthermore, it was estimated that the nutrient load from animal husbandry is approximately 75% of the load from domestic effluents due to the high number of cattle in the basin and the low percentage of forests.