Utility of multivariate statistical analysis to identify factors contributing river water quality in two different seasons in cold-arid high-altitude region of Leh-Ladakh, India

Abstract

Monitoring water quality of surface water resources is the key concern in determining the potable water quality in highaltitude region. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate different parameters affecting water quality of river and identify the most important variables and factors significantly affecting water quality. In the present study, multivariate statistical methods including cluster analysis and principal component analysis/factor analysis were applied to analyze the Indus River water quality in the Trans-Himalayan region of India. For this total 25 no. of physicochemical parameters were analyzed in water samples taken from seven different monitoring sites in summer and winter season. All the physical, microbial, chemical, and mineral parameters were analyzed by using the standard methods of American Public Health Association, whereas minerals were determined with the inductively coupled plasma optical emission of spectroscopy method. Thereafter, experimental two-season (28 samples × 25 parameters) matrices of both the seasons were run through the multivariate statistical data analysis. The varifactors obtained from the FA of both the seasons and results indicate that the parameters responsible for water quality variations are mainly related to discharge and temperature (natural), organic pollution (point source: domestic sanitary waste), and nutrients (non-point sources: agriculture) in the summer season. However, in the winter seasons, results showed that the river water was less affected by anthropogenic activities and natural weathering process. Therefore, it is concluded that quality of Indus River water is affected by agricultural, domestic, and hydrogeochemical sources in the summer season. These findings corroborate suitability of multivariate statistical techniques in the elucidation of various parameters for water quality monitoring and determination of different contamination sources.

Soil Physico Chemical Properties and Macronutrients Evaluation during Sowing and after Harvesting of Crop at High Altitude Leh Ladakh India

“…Many crops required either alkaline or acidic soil conditions for their survival 21 . Some of the researchers have been reported that the soil of Ladakh is alkaline in nature [15][16] ; likewise, Dar et al also supported the alkaline nature of soil 27 . Our study also found that soil pH in Ladakh villages at time crop sowing 8.12±0.05 and after harvesting of crops are 8.16±0.06, i.e., alkaline (Table 2).…”

Hydrochemical and quality assessment of irrigation water at the trans-himalayan high-altitude regions of Leh, Ladakh, India

“…The squared Euclidean distance between normalized data was used to measure the similarity between samples or in hierarchical cluster analysis (CA). The dendrogram was obtained after the data was normalized by Ward's method (Giri et al 2019). All other data analysis was done using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.…”

“…Here, the soil is mainly of sandy (80.73%) in nature, followed by silt (12.83%) and clay (6.44%) (Charan et al 2013;Giri et al 2019). The nature of rocks is mainly igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary type.…”

“…Water samples were acid digested for analysis of minerals, viz. Ca, Mg, Na, K, and Si, using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) (PerkinElmer Analyst, Optima 7000 DV) as per the method described by Giri et al (2019). The plasma conditions of ICP-OES were as follows: The plasma flow rate was 15 Lt/min, the auxiliary gas flow rate was 0.2 Lt/min, the nebulizer gas flow was 0.8 Lt/min, the RF power was 1300 watts, and the pump flow rate was 1.5 mL/min.…”

“…Ladakh, the land of high passes, is a high-altitude trans-Himalayan region with great strategic importance. The Indus, Shyok, and Zanskar rivers are the major rivers flowing through this region (Giri et al 2019). These rivers have an essential role in the irrigation of this region for growing crops and fodder (Bharti et al 2017a, b).…”