Interpretation of groundwater quality parameters for springs
in Tafileh area in south of Jordan using principal components analysis

Suleiman M. Tashtoush and Sameer A. Al-Subh
Department of Mathematics and Statistics,

Mutah University Al-Karak Jordan

Environmental Sciences, Vol. 3, 2015, no. 1, 31 - 44

HIKARI Ltd, www.m-hikari.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.12988/es.2015.523

Abstract

Water samples were collected from 15 springs in Tafileh and analyzed for 13 water quality variables physicochemical parameters. The principal components analysis (PCA) applied to define the parameters responsible for the main variability in water quality variance for Tafileh Springs. The PCA produce four significant main components and explain more than 79% of the variance. Namely, seasonal effects, springs effects, agricultural and storm water effects, geological effect, and disposed wastewater effect; that represent 47.048%, 15.153%, 9.241% and 8.231% respectively, of the total variance of water quality in Tafileh area. The results of PCA reflected a good look on the water quality monitoring and interpretation of the groundwater.