Sanitation on fluvial passenger ships in Amazônia: an analysis of risks to the environment and to health through fuzzy logic

ABSTRACT Fluvial transportation is one of the main ways of transportation for people and loads in the Amazon region. This work has as its main goal to analyze, through the Fuzzy Logic, the risks to the environment and to people’s health regarding the sanitary effluents of fluvial passengers ships in the Amazon Region, as well as the human consumable water distributed on board. To achieve these goals, superficial water collections in specific points of the Amazonas river and collections of human consumable water on board during a trip of 830 km between Santarém/PA and Belém/PA in a fluvial passenger ship were performed. The results showed that the ship that goes through the regular line Belém/Santarém/Belém does not have any methods of caption, storage and sanitary treatment of the effluents and the water served, throwing dejects directly into the river. The consumable water used by the passengers and the crew on board has a terrible quality, because 89% of the samples were contaminated with total coliforms and 84% with Escherichia coli. All superficial water samples were contaminated by total coliforms and E. coli. Statistics and the Fuzzy Logic model pointed that the risks are very high for the environment and for human health due of the lack of sanitation of these fluvial passenger ships in Amazon.