Hydro-Sanitary Monitoring of the Almendares River
A network for water control is staying up at the Havana’s Gran Parque Metropolitano for the gradual recovery of the Almendares River and its natural context
The Gran Parque Metropolitano de La Habana (Havana’s Great Metropolitan Park- GPMH by its Spanish acronym) project is being carryied out in the lower third part of the Almendares-Vento basin, where the river crosses four of Havana’s municipalities: Plaza de la Revolución, Playa, Marianao and Cerro.
The actions of the project are directly aimed at the area known as Casiguaguas, a natural area of 700 hectares in the last 9.5 km of the Almendares River which received its name at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Since distant times, thoughtless people have turned the river currents in the city into dumps.
And the Almendares, one of the most important rivers in the Western region in Cuba, located in the so-called Havana green belt, hasn’t escaped this social phenomenon.
However, the Gran Parque, in its environmental, recreational and socio-cultural purpose, is giving priority to the rehabilitation and recovery of the river and its natural context, with the aim of improving the quality of life of the surrounding populations, enlarging the biodiversity and increasing the sanitary conditions of all its rivers.
And, to fulfill this objective, the Gran Parque has its own monitoring system which assesses the quality of the waters of the Almendares, and its last four tributaries: the Marinero, Santoyo, Orengo and Mordazo streams.
The monitoring platform determines the variations in quality and quantity of the main parameters or indicators which fix the health conditions in the river currents.
Ten sampling areas are distributed from the lower part of the middle basin until the area where sea waters penetrate.
Four of these sampling areas are located at the junction of the forementioned small rivers, and at the Rio Cristal station in Boyeros municipality, which is considered an imaginary hydrological closure.
In addition, inside the Gran Parque there are four other positions in the bed of the Almendares, and a station at the Puente (Bridge) on 23rd street, which has borders with Plaza and Plaza de la Revolución municipalities) and is considered as a closing point because it’s near the mouth of the river.
Monthly and instantaneous samples are taken in every control place, following the orientations given by the International Standard Method, for a total of seven indicators: two of them are biological and five are physical-chemical indicators.
The laboratory, accredited and specialized in natural waters and residuals, that belongs to the National Company for the Analysis and General Technical Services of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH) is the main support for the analytical determinations of this monitoring network.
Information provided by the Deputy Technical Director of the GPMH, Engineer Beatriz Bianchi Calera, shows that the environmental cleaning up has increased by 55 percent.
The specialist assures in a paper published by her in the Siempre Verde (Ever Green) magazine of the GPMH, that these results are in accordance with the effectiveness of the actions carried out in favor of the sustainability of the ecosystem in the Gran Parque.
These actions include the establishment of the protecting plant belt; the closure, transfer or change of use of several of the industries placed in the territory; and the extraction of solid floating wastes and the creation of eco-technological systems for the treatment of liquid residuals of the population, and the environmental education of neighbors and visitors, among others.
Currently, the Almendares River shows a visual improvement in the territory of Havana’s Great Metropolitan Park. However, the park doesn’t count yet on top-quality conditions that would allow events to be carried out that make a direct or indirect contact of human with the waters possible.
So, efforts are necessary to reach higher levels of quality in the cleaning up of the river water, which is surrounded by an ever green environment in harmony with nature.
Sources: Siempre Verde Bulletin Magazine of the GPMH, September 2015, notes by the author.