Groundwater management study through index construction and its reliability evaluation with discriminant analysis

Abstract

Abstract Manuscript’s motivation was to contribute to the water resources integral management approach that implies joint consideration of variables related to the water quality, its use, and their interactions. To address this complexity two statistical tools, index number model and discriminant analysis, were combined. The objective was to construct several index for the water management analysis of rural schools in the Tandil district (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and evaluate its reliability through multivariate analysis. Different water quality index based on physicochemical and microbiological analysis in water samples was constructed. A handling water index from surveys made in rural schools was constructed. 69% of the schools have good result of the water quality index, while only 31% had a handling index high result. It was shown that in the rural territory the water potability conditions are compromised fundamentally due to the lack of stakeholder’s empowerment and the absence of an institutional policy. Methodology used resulted adequately and can be applied with low cost of obtaining information to other environmental problems that require the integration of qualitative and quantitative variables. It therefore represents an advance for applied statistics since it allows dealing with the complexity of the variables combination without losing mathematical reliability.