Elaboração de uma ferramenta computacional de uso livre para simulação da qualidade de água em ambiente lótico QUALI-TOOL

Abstract

The uses of water resources generate conflicts of quantitative and qualitative nature in basin scale, it impelling the development of computational tools with the most different levels of complexity, which assist the management and planning in water surface. This paper presents an free tool for evaluation of water quality in lotic environment, called QUALI-TOOL, using a Visual Basic programming language with graphical interface in Excel. The tool allows the simulation of arbitrary parameters (suspended solids, toxic compounds and others), dissolved oxygen, oxygen biochemistry, organic nitrogen, ammonia, nitrate, Escherichia-coli and heavy metals. For the usage of the tool's full potential, a hypothetical basin was used as the study area, in which 62.5 km of the main river receives tributaries, punctual and diffuse inputs of pollutant loads and punctual consumptive demand. The simulations were also performed in others two computational tools to verify the accuracy of QUALI-TOOL. QUALI-TOOL has proved to be a useful tool for academic and professional community in planning and managing water resources in local and basin scale. The user’s manual was organized in a topic sequence, helpful for the begginers users. The manual also provides a solution of a practical example of selfcleaning in a fictional stretch of a river, which the system metodology uses all the toll’s poten- ciality. In general, the QUALI-TOOL computational tool can be used for academic and technical purposes in the planning and management of water resources at local and river basin level. Keywords: Computational