Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

In the present study, descriptive and multivariate statistical techniques (principal component analysis) were used to
investigate groundwater salinity in the area adjacent to Lake Dayet Erroumi. Nine groundwater samples were collected
during September 2019 and analyzed for the following physicochemical variables: pH, EC, DO, Ca2+ , Mg2+, Na+, K+, HCO3-, Cl-, SO4 2- and NO3-. On the basis of on concentration averages, cation abundance is Na+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+ > K+ and anion abundance is Cl- > HCO3- > SO4 2- > NO3-. Two principal components were selected on the basis of eigenvalue, which explains 71.39% of the total variance. The first principal component (F1) accounts for 52.37% of total variance and indicates water salinization, which depends on abiotic factors. The second principal component (F2) explains 19.01% of the information and indicates parameters dependent on biotic factors (DO and pH). Projec- tion of the observations revealed two groups of wells: the first group comprises the wells characterized by very high salinity, and the second group comprises the wells with lower salinity. These results show that the wells on the southern shore of the lake are more highly mineralized than other wells. The high mineralization of the groundwater is of natural origin, due to the leaching of Triassic evaporitic rocks.