Search

This study was carried out in rural communities in the state of Guanajuato, in central Mexico. A questionnaire was directly applied to users of rainwater (RW) to identify the uses, water consumption, and perception towards RW and traditional supply sources, for the purpose of evaluating the relevance of RW in different situations as an alternative supply, as well as the factors that affect the adoption and use of this source. RW turned out to be the users’ main water source, and functions as a tool to increase the knowledge and perception of the rainy season and other factors. The respondents identified at least one benefit from the use of RW; the most important benefits were the watering of plants and gardens, avoiding the purchase of water from tank trucks, avoiding the need to fetch water, among others. In the localities studied, where the traditional water supply is either deficient or totally lacking, the use and acceptance of RW has increased. Economic support and training to install systems were key factors for those systems’ installation in the communities. These findings may assist future projects to promote the use of RW harvesting at the domestic level and increase the water supply.

Guanajuato City population is 110,000 habitants. The city uses as a drinking water source two water reservoirs. These reservoirs supply approximately 40% of the city demand; the difference is pumped from a granular aquifer (alluvial deposits) which is recharged by percolation though fractured rocks in the highlands. To the reservoirs got drainage of abandoned mines. There are more than 20 mines that drain year round relevant amounts of sulfate waters. This problem is extreme during the dry season, when the only water in the creeks is the mine drainage water (Ramos-Arroyo, et al., 2011). This work presents a study of sulfate removal from a solution that simulates mine drainage in Guanajuato region (sulfate concentration 1400 ppm), by electrocoagulation (EC) method, using aluminum as a sacrifice anode in a lab scale electro-coagulation reactor. The couplings with a phytoremediation process improve better result. The removal of sulfates with the coupling of these two methods was satisfactory; decreasing the sulfate concentration around 90%. Results are also presented of sulfate removal from different abandoned mines drainage in Guanajuato, Mexico. Sulfate removal is followed during EC and the phytoremediation test, using HPLC and UV-vis. The electrocoagulation method has shown good results in the removal of arsenic and sulfates (Primitivo, et al., 2014). This work presents also the results with different sulfate concentrations, types of water and the coupling of the EC method with another different method ( phytoremediation), to reduce costs and increase the percentage of removal of sulfates. We thank the financial support given by CONACYT-CONCYTEG through the project GTO-2012-C04-195057 References 1.- Removal of arsenic and sulfates from an abandoned mine drainage by Electrocoagulation. Influence of hydrodynamic and current density. Primitivo Del Ángel, Gilberto Carreño, José L. Nava, Martín T. Martínez, Josefina Ortiz. Int. J. Electrochem. Sci., 9 (2014) 710 – 719 2.- Afectaciones del Drenaje de Minas Abandonadas al Abasto de Agua Potable en Guanajuato, México. Y. R. Ramos-Arroyo, F. Ramírez-Navarro, J. Martínez-Arredondo, D. Muñoz-Cancino, I. Rodríguez-Huerta, G. Carreño-Aguilera, Macla, 15 (2011) 175.