Heavy Metals in the Environment - 9 - Assessment of water quality using different pollution indices and multivariate statistical techniques

The quality of water can be assessed by the analysis of its physical, chemical, and biological features. This chapter explains the use of cluster analysis, multivariate statistical methods, principal component analysis, and factor analysis for the interpretation and analysis of difficult water quality data. These techniques are useful in identifying the sources of pollution and getting a better understanding of the geographical and temporal changes in the quality of surface water. The use of multivariate statistical methods in the monitoring data gives information about the chemical structure of water bodies.