Ecological health through air, water, and soil monitoring

Despites it´s beauty, the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) has one of the most important bay in Brazil. Althought, it has been continuously polluted as other urban water resources in the world. During several years the Guanabara Bay has been receiving different types of chemical and organic pollutants originated mainly from industries and domestic waste. It is estimated that, in the last years, the bottom sediment has reached more than 50 centimeters of contaminated material, what puts in danger the life of fishery and plants that depends on it to survive as pulls down the water quality. In order to develop a methodology to monitoring and controlling the ecological heath of Guanabara Bay it was accomplished a study in which were considered and evaluated indicators for waste, water and soil quality assessment that should be applied in 11 cities around the Guanabara Bay. As a result it was observed that the methodology applied leaded to a range of development possibilities according to the chosen criteria, besides a new discussion about economic, social and environmental aspects related with environmental management in order to improve ecological heath of Guanabara Bay. It was observed also a considerable complexity in waste and water management, what was solved by a multidisciplinary staff acting in decision making and poverty reduction measures.