Graphical Techniques of Presentation of Hydro-Chemical Data

Abstract

Water is vital to man’s existence and early human civilizations centered on springs and streams for their day to day activities with water which is vital for survival. Throughout history, people around the world have used groundwater as a source of drinking water and even today, more than half of the world’s population depends on groundwater for survival. Pure water does not exist in nature due to various interactions between the geologic Formation as well as atmospheric gases such as Carbon dioxide and Oxygen, hence the need for chemical analysis of water. Determination of concentration of various ions is one major form of chemical analysis. Because of the number of ions involved, it is usually more convenient to present the results in graphical forms for easy understanding of the water samples analyzed. There are several methods of graphical presentation which includes Bar Chart, Pie Chart, Stiff Diagram, Schoeller Diagram, Piper Diagram and Scattered Plots.  For instance Bar chart, Pie Chart, Stiff Diagram are good for small numbers of chemical data, whereas the Schoeller, Piper Diagrams and Scattered Plots are suitable for presentation of results for large numbers of chemical data.

Keywords: Groundwater, Hydrochemistry, Graphical, Molality and Water type