Situación Actual del Agua Subterránea en el Ecuador: Análisis al Reporte de Pruebas de Bombeo 2016 a 2023

Determining the current situation of groundwater in Ecuador is of great importance to focus efforts on the sustainable management of this vital resource. Due to the scarce information at the country level on the quantity and quality of this resource, it has been necessary to analyze the overexploitation of aquifers from the reports of pumping tests in deep wells delivered by consultants as part of the enabling documentation for obtaining a certificate of water availability for groundwater sources before the regulatory body. Information was collected from 427 reports from 2016 to 2023, 21 parameters of pumping tests were identified and analyzed and it was determined that the parameters of Transmissivity (T) and Recommended Flow Rate (Qrecom) would be of relevance for the analysis of the current situation of groundwater in the country; Based on these two parameters, 336 reports from 2021 to 2023 were analyzed; of this population, 187 reports with information on transmissivity and recommended flow parameters were taken into consideration for the analysis, since the value of T indicates the possibility of exploiting the aquifer, and Qrecom is the flow recommendation for not overexploiting the aquifer by the professional who carried out the pumping test, so a comparison of these values was made with the research carried out by hydrogeology experts, through a table of aquifer qualification according to transmissivity. The findings were: 55% of the pumping tests reported recommend a flow rate according to the Transmissivity value, which indicates that there would be no evidence of overexploitation of the aquifer, while 45% of the pumping tests reported recommend a flow rate higher than the Transmissivity range, This implies the importance of recommending an exploitation flow that guarantees the quantity of water in the face of the challenge of groundwater sustainability in Ecuadorian territory. Recommend.