title: Impacts of a flash flood on drinking water quality: case study of areas most affected by the 2012 Beijing flood.
abstract: In this study, we present a method for identifying sources of water pollution and their relative contributions in pollution disasters. The method uses a combination of principal component analysis and factor analysis. We carried out a case study in three rural villages close to Beijing after torrential rain on July 21, 2012. Nine water samples were analyzed for eight parameters, namely turbidity, total hardness, total dissolved solids, sulfates, chlorides, nitrates, total bacterial count, and total coliform groups. All of the samples showed different degrees of pollution, and most were unsuitable for drinking water as concentrations of various parameters exceeded recommended thresholds. Principal component analysis and factor analysis showed that two factors, the degree of mineralization and agricultural runoff, and flood entrainment, explained 82.50% of the total variance. The case study demonstrates that this method is useful for evaluating and interpreting large, complex water-quality data sets.
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Rubao
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Daizhi
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: An
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Lili
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Can
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Hongjuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: Center of Hygiene Assessment and Research, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 20 Dongda Street, Beijing 100071, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Applied sciences; Health sciences; Mathematics; Pollution; Risk assessment processes