Water Quality Assessment in the Bamoun Plateau, Western-Cameroon: Hydrogeochemical Modelling and Multivariate Statistical Analysis Approach

Abstract

This study focuses on the geochemical and bacteriological investigation of surface and ground water in the Bamoun plateau (Western-Cameroon). During the period from September 2013 to August 2014, 71 samples were collected from two springs, one borehole, four wells and the Nchi stream for analysis of major elements. In order to obtain the characteristics of the various species of bacteria, 7 samples were selected. The analytical method adopted for this study is the conventional hydrochemical technic and multivariate statistical analysis, coupled with the hydrogeochemical modelling. The results revealed that, water from the zone under study are acidic to basic, very weakly to weakly mineralized. Four types of water were identified: 1) CaMg-HCO 3 ; 2) CaMg-Cl-SO 4 ; 3) NaCl-SO 4 and 4) NaK-HCO 3. The major elements were all listed in the World Health Organization guidelines for drinking water quality, except for nitrates which was found at a concentration > 50 mg 3 NO − /l in the borehole F401. As for the hydrobiological aspect, the entire sample contained all the bacteriological species except for spring S301 and well P401.

Hydrogeochemistry and Mercury Contamination of Surface Water in the Lom Gold Basin (East Cameroon): Water Quality Index, Multivariate Statistical Analysis and Spatial Interpolation

“…This is precisely the case for tropical rivers in Africa and South America that have their source in low relief areas where the supply rate of dissolved salts to rivers is very low and the amount of precipitation is high [72]. These results are comparable with those of Rakotondrabe et al [22] in the Lom basin, those of Mfonka et al and Kamtchueng et al [47,73] in the West Region of Cameroon and those of Thalmeier et al [74] in Argentina, where rock weathering processes predominate the rainfall ones.…”

“…Pearson's correlation matrix (CM) was used to assess the relationship between the 17 measured variables [47]. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify homogeneous groups of variables within the principal factors to determine their possible origins as sources of pollution in the analyzed waters [48].…”

Study of the Physico-Chemical and Microbiological Quality of Water from River Innaouene, Taza Province, Morocco

“…According to the surface water classification grid (Mfonka et al, 2021), the water of all stations can be classified as 'very poor'.…”

An integrated assessment of the groundwater chemistry of the aquifers at North Giza Governorate, using multivariate statistical analysis, ionic ratios, and geochemical modeling

“…The integration of hydrochemical studies with statistical analysis is imperative to understand processes that govern the chemical composition of water (El Alfy et al, 2017). In recent years, the use of modeling techniques has become popular to unravel the complex interplay of hydrological, geological, and geochemical processes that affect water quality (Mfonka et al, 2021;Mohammed et al, 2022). At the west delta area, the application of such techniques has been highly beneficial to study the hydrochemical characteristics of the groundwater system and to identify key factors that control water chemistry.…”