The Salinization Problem of the Deep Groundwater Based on Multivariable Statistical Methods

To indentify the influence of human activities on groundwater chemistry, fifteen groundwater samples, from the mostly exploited aquifers, were collected at Tanghai County. Considering the multivariable statistical method is reliable to study the anthropogenic process affecting groundwater composition especially in the early stage, 10 measured hydrochemical variables were used in factor analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis. Factor 1 included EC, TDS, Cl-, and K+ is interpreted as relating to groundwater salinization. Factor 2 and factor 3 is mostly influenced by the water-rock interactions during the flow path and fertile contamination, respectively. Meanwhile, the Q-mode classification result reveals that the cluster 1 having high factor 1 scores also is related to the over-pumping of groundwater, in accordance with the factor analysis result. Generally, to protect freshwater resources and suitable development of this study, some related measures should be mitigated to limit groundwater mining.