Study of aluminium in groundwater using chemometric methods

ABSTRACTThe field dataset including physico-chemical characteristics of Khibiny alkaline massif groundwater aquifer was analysed for the first time by applying chemometric methods to explore the relationships between investigated parameters in both time and frequency domains. Elevated Al concentration in water of this aquifer is described as a serious health concern when used for the household water supply. The time series of 12 physico-chemical parameters were examined by using Pearson correlation, multiple linear regression and spectral analysis based on fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. Computed pairwise correlation coefficients matrix revealed that pH values, NO3−, SO42−, Cl− and TDS correlate with Al concentrations at a statistically significant level (α-level = 0.05). The multiple regression model including Cl−, NO3− and pH explains up to 54% of Al concentrations temporal variation in groundwater. Fourier coefficients, power spectral density (PSD) and cumulative spectral power (CSP) were calcu...