Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• mahboobeh sarbazi
• Sadat Feiznia
• Mohammad Mahdavi

Abstract

Water quality is always one of the major challenges for managers and decision makers in water resource management. However, the problems of water quality are more important than quantity. One of the main ways in thorough review and assessment of water quality using multivariate statistical techniques are, the majority of changes to a system, in order to identify important factors that influence could explain. This study classified zone Groundwater Quality Mashhad plain terms of agricultural potential and its quality review process has been carried out in recent decades. Therefore, the quality of groundwater for agricultural use was studied and maps of quality classification for 2001-2011 years were prepared. Then, using geological map, the effect of geological formations on degradation of groundwater quality was assessed. For water quality analyses, 10 important water quality variables in 39 selected wells were measured and they were analyzed using multivariate statistical techniques. The statistical analyses which were used are: Factor analysis for determining the most important variables, cluster analysis for determination of variables homogenous groups and Pearson Correlation for investigation of relationships between variables. The results have shown the best relationship between geological formation and quality factors. Also, the results of Factor Analysis also showed that EC and TDS 71.02 of the total variance explained by factor loading 0.98 and pH 14.91 of the total variance explained by factor loading 0.93 are the most important variables affecting the quality of groundwater in the study area.

Keywords

• Groundwater quality
• geology
• GIS
• Multivariate statistical techniques
• Mashhad Aquifer