Dumps, Contamination Potential, Physical Environment Parameters
Dumps constitute the inadequate form of final disposal of waste on the ground without any environmental control measure. Among the main environmental impacts caused by dumps are contamination of soil and surface and underground water resources. The state of Bahia has a great variation in the factors of the physical environment, especially with regard to pedology and climate, and the garbage dumps studied have a great variation in these aspects. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the potential for environmental contamination of the dumps, considering these factors, in addition to the amount of slurry generated by each dump. However, most municipalities do not have sufficient resources for management, adequate final destination and neither, to finance in-depth studies and recovery of the area. In this sense, this work aims to evaluate the potential of environmental contamination of dumps in Bahia, through the main potentiating parameters, aiming to contribute to the formulation of strategies and criteria of priorities of resource allocation by municipalities, in the adoption of environmental intervention measures appropriately in the dumps. In this sense, the following studies were carried out: selection of dumps; selection of the main parameters of the physical environment and municipal solid waste; acquisition of primary and secondary data on selected environmental parameters; definition of the methodology for data analysis and interpretation. The main results obtained were: 1) the parameters of the physical environment indicators of the potential for environmental contamination by dumps were: amount of leaching produced by the dumps; texture, structure and speed of soil infiltration, which influence soil permeability, enhancing the speed with which leaching propagates underground, increasing the risks of groundwater contamination and even conditioning the surface runoff of this contaminant; rainfall, which contributes to a higher leach production, which enhances the environmental risk of dumps; distance from surface and underground water bodies; 2) The dumps with the highest potential for contamination were those located under the highest rainfall and soils with high infiltration speed and small distances of water bodies (rivers and groundwater), such as the Valença dump, which presented the highest leaching potential produced, combined with high infiltration speed of its soils, which provides faster percolation of this contaminant underground. In addition, this dump is located at a short distance from rivers and relatively small depth of the local groundwater level.