Multivariate micropollutants analysis in marine waters

Abstract

The monitoring of water quality today provides a great quantity of data consisting of the values of the parameters measured as a function of time. In the marine environment, and especially in the suspended material, increasing importance is being given to the presence of organic micropollutants, particularly since some are known to be carcinogenic. As the number of measured parameters increases examining the data and their consequent interpretation becomes more difficult To overcome such difficulties, numerous cbemometric techniques have been introduced in environmental chemistry, such as Multivariate Data Analysis (MVDA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR).The use of the first technique in this work has been applied to the interpretation of the quality of Augusta bay, by measuring the concentration of numerous organic micropollutants, together with the classical water pollution parameters, in different sites and at different times. The MVDA has highlighted the difference between various sampling sites whose data were initially thought to be similar. Furthermore, it bas allowed a choice of more significant parameters for future monitoring and more suitable sampling site locations.