Multivariate Statistical Analysis Applied to Water Quality of a Tropical Coastal Lagoon, Cartagena, Colombian Caribbean

Abstract

Coastal lagoons are one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, because of population growth, habitat destruction, pollution, wastewater, overexploitation and invasive species which are the main causes of their degradation. The objective of this paper was to evaluate the water quality behavior in a stressed coastal lagoon in Cartagena, Colombian Caribbean. Environmental data was analyzed using hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, and also Principal components analysis (PCA). The study was focused on water parameters such as dissolved oxygen (DO), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD), salinity, pH, total dissolved solids, total coliforms (TC), Fecal coliforms (FC), ammonium (NH4+) and total phosphorus (TP). The analysis was conducted in line with the Colombian national water standard. Results showed that BOD5, COD, phosphorus, and coliforms are out of the limits for these variables in Colombia and are reaching levels that may be a threat to human health. Principal components analysis detected five components that explained 79.4% of the variance of data and showed that anthropogenic and temporal factors might be affecting the variation of the parameters.

Water quality monitoring and assessment in coastal lagoons: Developing a protocol using a case study in Sainthamaruthu lagoon, Sri Lanka

“…Organic pollutants may reach the lagoon via the anthropogenic processes either point source (domestic wastewater, solid waste dumps) or non‐point source (surface runoff), resulting in variation in these variables, therefore factor 3 can be named as “anthropogenic sources”. Eroded materials and urban runoff caused an 11.3% variance in water quality (TSS and DO) in the Cabrero tropical coastal lagoon in Cartagena (Baldiris‐Navarro et al., 2020). Based on these findings, it is clear that water pollution in Sainthamaruthu coastal lagoon is caused by both natural and anthropogenic sources.…”