A Proposal for Redesigning the Water Quality Network of the Tunjuelo River in Bogotá, Colombia through a Spatio-Temporal Analysis

Bogotá is the capital of Colombia and represents the most important urban center in the country. Bogotá’s population and economic growth have accelerated exponentially in recent years and this growth has brought with it a variety of environmental impacts, including degradation of surface water quality. Government agencies have developed the water quality network of Bogotá that spans across four large rivers, including the Tunjuelo. According to measurements since 2009, water quality has changed in association with the dynamics of the city. This article utilizes a spatial and temporal analysis with multivariate statistics (Principal Components Analyses, dendograms, and Kruskal-Wallis) to propose a redesign of the Tunjuelo River water quality network. Based on these analyses, the number of monitoring stations can be reduced from nine to seven and the measurement frequency can be reduced. Together, the proposed spatial and temporal redesign would reduce the sample acquisition and analysis costs across the network by 50%.