Statistical interpretation on seasonal variations of groundwater quality in Ramanathapuram coastal tract, Tamil Nadu, India

Groundwater availability depends on its accessibility, as well as on its quality. Factor analysis (FA) has been used to analyze quality problems and provide strategies for water resources exploitation. The present study demonstrated the use of factor analysis to evaluate temporal variations in groundwater quality and find latent sources of water pollution in coastal areas of Ramanathapuram District, Tamil Nadu, India. The data set included data of eleven water quality parameters viz., pH, electrical conductivity, salinity, total dissolved solids, total alkalinity, calcium hardness, magnesium hardness, total hardness, chloride and fluoride for two different seasons (pre- and post-monsoon) in 2012. FA of the two seasons resulted in two latent factors accounting for 80.38 % of total variance for pre-monsoon (summer) and 73.03 % for post-monsoon (winter) in the water quality data sets. The results obtained from FA prove that the groundwater quality in winter is better than that of summer. Langelier Saturation Index was used to find out scaling and corrosive tendency of the groundwater samples for the study area. Karl Pearson correlation matrix was used to study the correlation between the studied water quality parameters. Hence, the analysis suggests that FA techniques are useful tools for identification of influence of various quality parameters on overall nature of the groundwater.