Physico chemical characteristics and multivariate analysis of contaminated harbour sediments

Abstract

Dredging is a very important procedure within harbour management. Italian legislation regulates dredging activity requiring high number of sampling stations and physico chemical and biological parameters but the criteria for their interpretation are not reported adequately. The comprehension of the information included in the data is a very critical step of every dredging activity of harbour sediments and the traditional examination of these large database (searching of average values of pollutants or simple correlations among pollutants) does not make easy their interpretation. So the included information can result hidden than clarified. With the aim to perform a complete characterization of the examined area we applied Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA) to the examination of a complex data matrix consisting of the physico chemical characterization (sediment texture, heavy metals, organic pollutants) of the industrial canal sediments in Livorno harbour. The multivariate methods allowed to study the general distribution of pollutants in the Livorno canal, clarifying also the significant parameters for the characterization of the system.