Evaluation of quality of water in the Damour river basin in Lebanon: Hydrochemical, isotopic and statistical approach

Comprehensive and contemporary evaluations of physical, chemical, isotopic and statistical endpoints have been performed on the springs and groundwater of Damour river basin. Results show that groundwater pumped from wells has a higher concentration of anions and cations than the spring waters. The chemistry of the majority of water samples is dominated by crustal component concentrations. Elevated chloride, nitrate and sulfate content in the wells are due to the different intensive agricultural and urban activities and the pumped groundwater is slightly influenced by seawater intrusion. δ180/δ2H diagram shows that the data fit the Mediterranean Meteoric Water Line (MMWL) and the elevated δ18O and δ2H values of the groundwater pumped from the wells indicate evaporative isotope enrichment. Principal component analysis PCA was used to describe the temporal changes in waters and allowed the selection of the most discri-minating factors, one of them representing the contribution of bedrock dissolution. The other one represents the impact of agricultural and urban activities in the Damour river basin