Application of Principal Component Analysis in Surface Water Quality Monitoring

Surface water systems such as rivers, lakes and ground water are affected by the natural processes such as erosion of minerals and dissolution of nutrients from the overlying rocks as well as anthropogenic influences from urban, industrial and agricultural activities. These degradation of surface water quality resulted in altered species composition and decreased overall health of aquatic communities (Ouyang et al., 2002). Therefore, in view of the spatial and temporal variations in the physico-chemical, hydrological and biological attributes of surface water systems, regular monitoring programs are required for reliable estimates of the water quality.