Evaluation of the anthropogenic impact in Suat Ugurlu Dam lake using multivariate statistical techniques

Abstract

Sediments play an important role in the quality of aquatic ecosystems in the Dam Lake where they can either be a sink or a source of contaminants, depending on the management. This purpose of this study is to identify the sediment quality in order to find out the causes for the malodor and the eutrophication that is causing a bad scenario. Solutions for improving the dam are proposed. Multivariate statistical techniques, such as a principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA), were applied to the data regarding sediment quality in relation to anthropogenic impact in Suat Ugurlu Dam Lake. This data was generated during 2014-2015, with monitoring at four sites for 11 parameters. A PCA and CA were used in the study of the samples. The total variance of 84.1%, 74.3%, 87.4% and 91.5% suggest 4, 3, 3 and 4 principle components (PCs) in the four locations: LC1, LC2, LC3 and LC4, respectively. Also, a CA was applied to both the variables and the observations. Some variables and observations showed a high similarity based on the results of variables in the CA. Also, the similarity ratio of temperature-mercury (Hg) and oxidation reduction potential (ORP) was high and generally, the cluster number of variables was 5, according to the selected similarity level.