Principal factor and hierarchical cluster analyses for the performance assessment of an urban wastewater treatment plant in the Southeast of Spain.
Process performance and operation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are carried out to ensure their compliance with legislative requirements imposed by European Union. Because a high amount of variables are daily measured, a coherent and structured approach of such a system is required to understand its inherent behavior and performance efficiency. In this sense, both principal factor analysis (PFA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) are multivariate techniques that have been widely applied to extract and structure information for different purposes. In this paper, both statistical tools are applied in an urban WWTP situated in the Southeast of Spain, a zone with special characteristics related to the geochemical background composition of water and an important use of fertilizers. Four main factors were extracted in association with nutrients, the ionic component, the organic load to the WWTP, and the efficiency of the whole process. HCA allowed distinguish between influent and effluent parameters, although a deeper examination resulted in a dendrogram with groupings similar to those previously reported for PFA.
Depart. of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Cartagena, Paseo Alfonso XIII, 44 E-30203 Cartagena, Spain. Electronic address: javier.bayo@upct.es.
Javier
J
Bayo
Hidrogea, Capitanes Ripoll, 8 E-30203 Cartagena, Spain.
Joaquín
J
López-Castellanos
D002947:Cities; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D013030:Spain; D064091:Waste Disposal Facilities / Q000592:standards*; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D062065:Wastewater / Q000737:chemistry*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000737:chemistry*
D062065:Wastewater; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
Chemometrics; Hierarchical cluster analysis; Principal factor analysis; Wastewater