Determinación de zonas sensibles a la proliferación de cianobacterias en embalses de la Comunidad de Madrid

Abstract

Cyanobacteria are indicators of eutrophication degree in freshwater ecosystems. Their massive proliferation is called cyanobacterial blooms, which entail several risks for animals, human being included. For these reasons, risk assessments are needed to improve the water management.

The multicriteria analysis methodology has been used in this study to determine the vulnerability to cyanobacterial blooms of the reservoirs of the Community of Madrid with a capacity of 2 hm3 or higher. To carry out this goal, a database has been created and analyzed through the geographic information system (GIS) tools. This analysis allowed to know how environmental parameters influence in the cyanobacterial proliferation, as well as to analyze the behavior of the different reservoirs to this issue.

The results of this index have allowed us to analyze the vulnerability of the reservoirs of the Community of Madrid and to verify if the values of this index have any correlation with the degree of eutrophication of the water masses studied. It has been observed how the information available for the elaboration of this project suffers from defects that hinder the correct functioning of the index.