Multivariate Analysis Of Ground Water Characteristics Of Geological Formations Of Enugu State Of Nigeria

Abstract The chemometric data mining techniques using principal factor analysis PFA and hierarchical cluster analysis CA was employed to evaluate and to examine the borehole characteristics of geological formations of Enugu State of Nigeria to determine the latent structure of the borehole characteristics and to classify 9 borehole parameters from 49 locations into borehole groups of similar characteristics. PFA extracted three factors which accounted for a large proportion of the variation in the data 77.305 of the variance. Out of nine parameters examined the first PFA had the highest number of variables loading on a single factor where four borehole parameters borehole depth borehole casing static water level and dynamic water level loaded on it with positive coefficient as the most significant parameters responsible for variation in borehole characteristics in the study. The CA employed in this study to identified three clusters. The first cluster delineated stations that characterise Awgu sandstone geological formation while the second cluster delineated Agbani sandstone geological formation. The third cluster delineated Ajali sandstone formation. The CA grouping of the borehole parameters showed similar trend with PFA hence validating the efficiency of chemometric data mining techniques in grouping of variations in the borehole characteristics in the geological zone of the study area.