Development and Application of Water Quality Classification Models
Date
2013-09-09
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Abstract
Though surface water quality is a dynamic quantity; factors, such as increase in population, changes in climate, and anthropogenic activities impose more variability in recent times. The main objectives of this thesis were to: (i) develop models for classification of raw surface water quality, (ii) analyze the spatial patterns and temporal trends of surface water quality, (iii) obtain exceedances of parameters in each class; and (iv) develop remote sensing based models for Canadian Water Quality Index (CWQI) and turbidity. A methodology was developed using principal component analysis (PCA) and clustering techniques on the basis of 19 water quality parameters for 18 lakes of Alberta. Three principal components (PCs) were indicators of hardness, salinity and biological activities for lakes. The surface water quality showed deterioration as the cluster number increased from 1 to 5. The most deteriorated quality of water was found in Cardinal Lake, Moonshine Lake, Winagami Lake, Miquelon Lake and Saskatoon Lake. A total exceedance model was developed for clusterization of surface water quality for 12 major rivers of Alberta. The PCs were the indicators of watershed geology, mineralization and anthropogenic activities related to land use/cover for rivers. The clusters showed a strong relationship with CWQI classes. Snow melting deteriorated the surface water quality of rivers due to anthropogenic activities from different land uses/covers. There was increasing trend for the mean exceedance of the parameters as the cluster number increased from low to high. Empirical models were developed for Canadian Water Quality Index and turbidity using 31 scenes of Landsat-5 TM satellite data for the Bow River. The significant models were 14 for CWQI and 12 for turbidity. 100% matching was found for 72% and 83% of data in best-fit models for CWQI and turbidity respectively. The variation in the Bow River water quality was due to climatic changes and irrigation.
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Environmental
Citation
Akbar, T. A. (2013). Development and Application of Water Quality Classification Models (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25634