Assessment of Near-Bottom Water Quality of Southwestern Coast of Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia: A Multivariate Statistical Approach
The study on Sarawak coastal water quality is scarce, not to mention the application of the multivariate statistical approach to investigate the spatial variation of water quality and to identify the pollution source in Sarawak coastal water. Hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the spatial...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/17118/ http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/17118/1/Assessment%20of%20Near-Bottom%20Water%20Quality%20%28abstract%29.pdf |
| Summary: | The study on Sarawak coastal water quality is scarce, not to mention the application of the multivariate statistical approach to
investigate the spatial variation of water quality and to identify the pollution source in Sarawak coastal water. Hence, the present
study aimed to evaluate the spatial variation of water quality along the coastline of the southwestern region of Sarawak using
multivariate statistical techniques. Seventeen physicochemical parameters were measured at 11 stations along the coastline with
approximately 225 km length. The coastal water quality showed spatial heterogeneity where the cluster analysis grouped the 11
stations into four different clusters. Deterioration in coastal water quality has been observed in different regions of Sarawak
corresponding to land use patterns in the region.Nevertheless, nitrate-nitrogen exceeded the guideline value at all sampling stations
along the coastline. The principal component analysis (PCA) has determined a reduced number of five principal components that
explained 89.0% of the data set variance. The first PC indicated that the nutrients were the dominant polluting factors, which is
attributed to the domestic, agricultural, and aquaculture activities, followed by the suspended solids in the second PC which are
related to the logging activities. |
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