IDENTIFICACIÓN Y CUANTIFICACIÓN DEL ÍNDICE DE CARGA CONTAMINANTE AL ACUÍFERO FREÁTICO EN EL BALNEARIO PEHUEN-CÓ, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

Water is a scarce and essential resource for human life, of great importance in the socioeconomic development of a region, which is why the sustainable management of hydric resources is especially relevant. In the coastal town of Pehuen-Có, located in the southwest of the province of Buenos Aires, the only source of water supply for human consumption is the phreatic aquifer of the coastal dune chain. The objective of this work is to carry out an inventory of potential sources of contamination and the determination of the subsurface contaminant load index of these sources, and to propose improvements for the preservation and protection of water resources by the authorities and the population in general. Thus, using the methodology proposed by Foster et al. (2002), it was possible toidentify activities and processes with a higher probability of generating contamination to the aquifer and to propose improvements for the preservation and protection of the water resource. The results obtained show that all the activities considered have a moderate to high contaminant load index. Given the geological and hydrogeological characteristics of the area and according to the analysis carried out in this study, the lack of protection of the only water resource available for humanconsumption in the zone is evident