Application of Multivariate Statistical Analysis in Assessing Surface Water Quality of Chamera-I Reservoir on River Ravi

The present investigation was carried out on Chamera - I reservoir located in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh from January, 2010 to Feburary, 2012 to study temporal changes in physico-chemical factors. Water quality samples were subjected to various chemometric methods like cluster analysis (CA), Principal Component analysis (PCA) and correlation (r)& regression analysis (RA) that identified and related most significant water quality parameters (WQPs). A dendrogram from the cluster analysis showed 2 major clusters separating rainy season from the other three seasons on temporal scale in the study area. PCA selected 3 variables accounting for 100 % of total variance for water quality on temporal scale. The correlation coefficient r ranged from 0.9 to 1.0. The obtained correlation values were then subjected to regression analysis suggesting significant linear relationship between various WQPs