Author(s): Cui Chun; Sundarambal Palani; Manasa Ranjan Behera; Pavel Tkalich
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Water quality; Hydrodynamic; Atmospheric phenomena; Statistical analysis; Principal component analysis; Cross-correlation; Singapore coastal waters
Abstract: Water quality parameters usually vary in space and time due to a combined effect of atmospheric and hydrodynamic forces. Understanding of the variability, trends and major driving forces may help to delineate natural and anthropogenic effects, thus contributing to the effective management of coastal waters. Two buoys are deployed in the West Johor Strait of Singapore to monitor a wide range of near-real-time high-resolution atmospheric, hydrodynamic, water property and water quality parameters. The effect of sea level, current, solar radiation, air temperature and precipitation on various water quality parameters are studied using principal component analysis (PCA). Further, cross-correlation (CC) technique is employed to identify the dependency and time lag between driving natural forces and dependent water property and water quality parameters. The analysis showed that the water quality parameters in the domain are driven by various atmospheric and hydrodynamic phenomena with well-defined time lags. This study illustrates the usefulness of PCA and CC analysis to identify and understand the temporal variability of water quality parameters for effective coastal management.
Year: 2012