| Popis: |
The Geumho River in South Korea passes through a metropolitan area with a high population density and multiple industrial complexes and, therefore, the water quality of this river is of significance for human health and economic activities. This study aims to assess the water quality of the Geumho River to inform river water quality management and improve pollution control using multivariate statistics and the Korean Water Quality Index (KWQI). Principal component and factor analysis identified those factors related to organic pollutants and metabolism (principal factor 1), and phosphorus and fecal coliform content (principal factor 2). In a cluster analysis, time was considered by distinguishing between seasons (spring, summer, autumn, and winter) and space was considered based on upstream (US), midstream (MS), and downstream (DS) river sections. Seven temporal variables and six spatial variables were extracted from the discriminant analysis (DA) results; the most important water quality variables were high during the spring and summer seasons and in the MS and DS regions. Temporally, the KWQI was highest in winter (70.9) and lowest in spring (59.2), whereas spatially, KWQI values were highest in the US (67.5) and lowest in the MS (56.4) sections. These results indicate that to be most effective, water management interventions in the Geumho River should focus on the urban midstream section and spring seasons. |
