The moderate positive load of Fe is influenced by geological activities (Adamu et al. 2015).
The first component (PC1) accounted for 49.14% of total variance and includes strong positive loadings of pH, turbidity, alkalinity, total hardness, colour, calcium hardness, magnesium hardness, Mg2+, Ca2+, SO42−, CO32−, HCO32− and total CO2; and moderate positive load of TDS, EC, free CO2 and Fe.
VF3 explaining 17.1% of the total variance had strong positive loadings on HCO3 and F, moderate positive loading on Na and moderate negative loading on SO4.
On the second principal component, Fe and NO3− concentrations have high positive loadings (0.867 0.903), and the concentration of Mg2+ shows moderate positive loading (0.576).
For the data set pertaining to cluster 1, VF1, which explained 47.4% of the total variance had strong positive loadings on Ca, Mg, TDS, EC and TH and moderate positive loading on Na.
The concentrations of EC, TDS, TA, TH, Na+, K+, Ca and HCO3− show high loadings (0.743 0.959), and the concentration of Cl− has moderate positive loading (0.616) on the first principal component.
The fourth component (PC4) which explained 9.05% of total variance has a moderate positive loading of Zn.
Component 3 explains approximately 9.5% of the total variance (Table 6) and has moderate positive loading for NO3 N and moderate negative loading for PO4 P (Table 5).
A third factor explains 12.70% of the data variation and has a strong positive loading on EC, Ca2+ and Cl− with moderate positive loading on Mg2+.
PC2 accounts for 18.6% of the total variance and moderate positive loading on Cl− and PO4 2− and negative score (moderate) with NO3 −, BOD and TC.
The fourth factor has a strong negative loading on water temperature and strong positive loading on SiO2 with moderate positive loading on pH explaining 9.10% of the total variation explained.
