Multivariate Methods Approach for Water Quality Index Estimation

Abstract

Water Quality Monitoring is crucial in determining the healthy level of a river. The variety of methods for monitoring water quality is essential to cover mistakes or damage in the future. For this reason, the comparison between the multivariate approach and the existing water quality index formulation was carried out in this study. The secondary data on the water quality of the Selangor river basin used in this study was obtained from the Department of Environment. The multivariate methods, specifically Factor Analysis (FA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were used to generate Water Quality Index (FA-WQI and PCA-WQI). The result shows that FA-WQI is closer to DOE-WQI compared to PCA-WQI.