Chemometrics data analysis of marine water quality in Maharashtra, west coast of India

Various chemometrics methods were used to analyze data sets of marine water quality for 9 parameters measured at 34 different sites of Maharashtra from 2007 to 2009 to determine spatial variations in marine water quality and identify pollution sources. Hierarchical cluster analysis (CA) grouped the 34 monitoring sites into three groups based on similarities in marine water-quality characteristics. Discriminant analysis (DA) was important in data reduction because it used five parameters (DO, Ammonia, pH, FC and temperature) to correctly assign 96.4% of the cases. In addition, principal component analysis (PCA) identified three latent pollution sources for organic pollution, industrial pollution and fecal pollution. Furthermore, water quality index was calculated based on four parameters viz. pH, DO, BOD and FC.