Five-year monitoring of physicochemical parameters was performed with two campaigns in low and high water periods of the Lower Soummam catchment. Data from 18 wells were processed by multivariate statistical tools in order to identify the principal factors influencing groundwater chemistry. Two matrices of 14 and 8 physicochemical parameters with 18 groundwater samples collected in wells were obtained. The correlation matrix showed strong associations between nine variables: K + , Ca 2+ , Na + , SO 4 2− , Cl − , Mg 2+ , NO 2 − , Zn 2+ and Sr 2+. Principal component analysis and factor analysis showed that the cumulated variance of high and low water periods was of 83.19% and 78.55%, respectively. The variables assigned to the mineralization effect or to pollution indicators were presented by the factor analysis. The bivariate plots confirmed a mineralization model, ascribed to dissolution of geological materials, and to high levels of saline contamination attributed to leakages from sanitary systems. They also showed an increase "upstream to downstream" of the mineralization, visualization of temporal variations, and a dilution process identification of the natural mineralization during the recharge of the aquifer.

In Algeria, the particulate flow in rivers is poorly quantified in the wadi due to the absence and the non‐standardization of the acquisition of measurement data. Most studies on particulate flows are quantified from time series of hydrometric stations. The present study is based on weekly sampling of water at the mouth of the Soummam watershed for the hydrological year 2011/2012. The sediment flux is analyzed from measurements of suspended solids (SS). The determination coefficients between the annual and seasonal “ liquid flow–solid flow‐” relationships vary from 75% to 82%, respectively. During this period, the watershed of 9125 km2 has provided a solid input estimated to 4.9 × 106 t yr−1, hence a specific flow of 538 t km−2 yr−1. In general, autumn floods were characterized by high concentrations of SS, which varies from 820 to 1275 mg L−1. The most important sediment transport volumes were observed during the period of December to February, this period is characterized by strong turbulence, due to extreme flows, favoring the largest volumes of solid transport. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 35: 204–211, 2016