Geochemical Characterization of Surface Water and Groundwater in Soummam Basin,Algeria

Multivariate statistical methods and geochemical modeling were used to assess spatial variation of water quality of the Soummam basin, Algeria. The application of hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) showed three main groups of samples. Group 1 samples are exclusively composed of surface water. Groups 2 and 3 samples consist of groundwater. Discriminant analysis assigned about 98.6% of the cases grouped by HCA. All groups are super-saturated with Ca-montmorillonite, dolomite, gibbsite, K-mica, kaolinite, and quartz, and all these groups are under-saturated with albite, anhydrite, anorthite, CO_2(g), gypsum, halite, melanterite, and smithsonite. The results of analysis of variance indicate that the saturation indices of each of the mineral phases are significant except for chalcedony and quartz (p > 0.05). The results obtained by inverse geochemical modeling show the dissolution of albite, which justifies Na enrichment during the chemical evolution of groundwater. Calcite, dolomite, Ca-montmorillonite, kaolinite, illite, gibbsite, and K-mica are shown to have always precipitated.