Integration of Water Quality Indices and Multivariate Modeling for Assessing Surface Water Quality in Qaroun Lake, Egypt

Water quality has deteriorated in recent years as a result of rising population and unplanned development, impacting ecosystem health. The water parameters Qaroun Lake are contaminated to varying degrees, particularly for aquatic life consumption. For that, the objective this work is improve assessments surface determine different geo-environmental affecting lake environmental system utilizing weighted arithmetic index (WAWQI) four pollution indices (heavy metal (HPI), (MI), contamination (Cd), (PI), that enhanced by multivariate analyses cluster analysis (CA), principal component (PCA), support vector machine regression (SVMR). Surface samples were collected at 16 locations from during 2018 2019. Thirteen physiochemical measured used calculate (WQIs). WQIs such WAWQI, HPI, MI, Cd, PI revealed degree contamination, with respect utilization. unsuitable, high polluted, seriously affected an environment. findings significantly impacted Al, moderately Cd Cu, while slightly Zn due uncontrolled releases domestic industrial wastewater. Furthermore, increasing salinity accelerates deterioration Therefore, sewage drainage wastewater should be treated before discharging into lake. SVMR models based on presented highest performance alternative method predict WQIs. example, calibration (Val.) validation performed best assessing R2 (0.99) (0.97–0.99), respectively. Finally, combination WQIs, CA, PCA, approaches could employed assess Lake.