Development of a groundwater quality index: GWQI, for the aquifers of the state of Bahia, Brazil using multivariable analyses

This work elaborated a groundwater quality index—GWQI, for the aquifers of the state of Bahia, Brazil, using multivariable analyses. Data from 600 wells located in the four hydrogeological domains: sedimentary, crystalline, karstic, and metasedimentary, were subjected to exploratory statistical analysis, and 22 out of 26 parameters were subjected to multivariable analysis using Statistica (Version 7.0). From the PCA, 5 factors were sufficient to participate in the index, due to sufficient explanation of the cumulative variance. The matrix of factorial loads (for 1–5 factors) indicated 9 parameters related to water quality and 4 hydrological, with factor loads above ± 0.50, to be part of the hierarchical cluster analysis. The dendrogram allowed to choose the 5 parameters related to groundwater quality, to participate in the GWQI (hardness, total residue, sulphate, fluoride and iron). From the multivariable analyses, three parameters from a previous index—NGWQI, were not selected for the GWQI: chloride (belongs to the hardness hierarchical group); pH (insignificant factor load); and nitrate (significant factor load only for 6 factors), also, not a regionalized variable. From the set of communality values (5 factors), the degree of relevance of each parameter was extracted. Based on these values, were determined the relative weights (w(i)) for the parameters. Using similar WQI-NSF formulation, a product of quality grades raised to a power, which is the weight of importance of each variable, the GWQI values were calculated. Spatialization of 1369 GWQI values, with the respective colors, on the map of the state of Bahia, revealed good correlation between the groundwater quality and the index quality classification. According to the literature on water quality indexing, the GWQI developed here, using emerging technologies, is a mathematical tool developed as specific index, as it was derived using limits for drinking water. This new index was tailored to represent the quality of the groundwater of the four hydrogeological domains of the state of Bahia. Although it has a regionalized application, its development, using, factor analysis, principal component analysis, and hierarchical cluster analysis, participates of the new trend for WQI development, which uses rational, rather than subjective assessment. The GWQI is a successful index due to its ability to represent the groundwater quality of the state of Bahia, using a single mathematical formulation, the same five parameters, and unique weight for each parameter.