Identification of influencing factors for groundwater quality variation using multivariate analysis

Abstract

This paper reports the results of multivariate analysis on the major-ions data present in groundwater collected in a hydrogeochemical survey of a hard rock terrain in Andhra Pradesh, India. The use of factor analysis is proposed, as a first step, for identifying the processes influencing the hydrogeochemical variations in groundwater. As a result of the application factor analysis, three factors were obtained, which explained characterization of groundwater quality and identified the sources for the presence of ions and its variations in concentrations and their geochemical processes. The natural dissolution of existing rocks of granites and granitic gneisses is the common influencing source for its hydrogeochemical character in the study area, but at some localized zones, the human-influenced sources of agricultural, industrial and urbanization are the dominating factors. The spatial and seasonal variation of the hydrogeochemical processes associated with the factor variables in the groundwater quality of the study area were analysed and evaluated.