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Updated: Jan 31, 2026

Continuous Hydrologic and Water Quality Monitoring of Vernal Ponds
Published on: November 13, 2017
[Limitations of the Water Quality Risk Index as an estimator of quality for human consumption]
Cesar A García-Ubaque1, Juan C García-Ubaque2, Juan P Rodríguez-Miranda3
1CG: Ing. Civil. M. Sc. Ingeniería Ambiental. Ph. D. Ingeniería. Profesor Asociado, Facultad Tecnológica. Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas. Director de grupo de investigación GIICUD. Bogotá, Colombia. cagarciau@udistrital.edu.co.
Objective:
To analyze the results of the Water Quality Risk Index (IRCA) in the 116 municipalities of the department of Cundinamarca, between 2007 and 2013.
Materials And Methods:
Information collected from the 116 municipalities of the department of Cundinamarca, selected and classified according to the percentage data retrieved by IRCA.
Results:
A decrease of the annual IRCA average is observed, which reflects an improvement of the water quality delivered in the department. However, 26.7% of the municipalities do not report information from their rural areas, and 56.9% of the municipalities report IRCA figures over 5, which means that even though they are at low risk, they receive water unfit for human consumption.
Conclusions:
A new weighting method for the parameters evaluated with the IRCA is proposed to make this index more representative of the risk to health. In addition, future studies should carry out a thorough statistical analysis on the size of the sample that allows the obtained results to be reliable for decision makers to improve the quality of drinking water.
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