RETRACTED: Cluster Analysis to Assess Groundwater Quality in Erode District, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

Water is a complicated environment system; traditional methods cannot meet the demands of water environment protection. As the frontrunner of complex nonlinear science and artificial in-telligence, artificial neural network has begun to be applied in the field of water quality evaluation and estimation. In view of the deficiency of the traditional methods, artificial intelligence tech-niques, such as neural networks modeling tools, can be applied to assess water quality parameters. This study is conducted to evaluate factors regulating groundwater quality in and around Erode District, Tamil Nadu, India. This investigation is focused on the determination of physico-chemical parameters such as pH, EC, TDS, Ca, Mg, TH, Na, K, HCO3, SO4 and Cl. Groundwater suitability for drinking, domestic and agricultural purposes is examined with WHO standards. Dominant factors controlling the hydro-geochemistry of groundwater in the study area is indicated by Principal Component Analysis. Classification methods are used to classify the water quality regulating fac-tors. Cluster analysis is supporting for the grouping on the basis of contamination characteristics of groundwater quality. This study also reveals that multivariate statistical analyses are used to improve the understanding of groundwater condition and appraisal of groundwater quality.