Temporal and spatial variations of water quality in the Jinshui River, China

Water pollution has become a growing threat to human society and natural ecosystems in recent decades, increasing the need to better understand the spatial and temporal variabilities of pollutants within aquatic systems. This study sampled water quality at 12 sampling sites from October 2006 to August 2008 in the Jinshui River of the South Qinling Mts., China. Multivariate statistical techniques and gridding methods were used to investigate the temporal and spatial variations of water quality and identify the main pollution factors and sources. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that 25 studied water quality variables had significant temporal differences (pp