Índice de salubridade ambiental em Maceió aplicado à bacia hidrográfica do riacho Reginaldo em Maceió/AL

Abstract

The Basin of Reginaldo Creek in the city of Maceió/AL presents problems related to environmental health conditions, especially in areas of irregular urban occupation, which occurred without the accompaniment of proper provision of public sanitation. Indices of Environmental Health has been used as planning tools for prioritizing actions in sanitation in several Brazilian cities, but its composition depends on bases of information about the services and the basic infrastructure of the city. This study aims to develop and map an Environmental Health Index (ISA) for The Basin of Reginaldo Creek in spatial scale of census tracts. Aiming to describe environmental health conditions (based on sanitary infrastructure and public sanitation services) on Reginaldo's creek basin, two main data sources was used: census 2010 and public service providers of sanitation in Maceió/AL. The methodology was based on characterization of the provision of public services sanitation of the basin considering the survey data based on two sources of information. Based on spatial sanitation data (such as water supply, sewage, solid waste collection and urban drainage – both infrastructure and public services), the ISA was computed and mapped. Results show high variability in environmental health conditions all over the basin. Considering local context (in a relative context), the overall environmental health of the basin is comprised in the range of moderate health. Although some census tracts are comprised in the range of satisfactory health, we observe deficiencies in one or more components of ISA all over the studied area. Additionally, it was observed some census tracts classified in a range of poor health, where the provision of public sanitation is poor. The establishment of the indicators used in this study considered the information available and allows to analyze the basin's conditions related to public sanitation services. Considering the available data (based on IBGE census data and public service providers data), significant differences in ISA value was observed for some census tracts, which indicates two aspects in the use of indicators: (1) the information is heavily dependent on how it was obtained, and (2) none of the two information sources used can adequately represent the real condition of the basin. Data from the census depends on the perception of the population regarding the particular service (highly subjective based on the appropriation of knowledge about the used technology) while data service providers can not reproduce the actual use of the structure available from the population.