Assessment of errors in water quality data using ion balancing methods - A case study from Cauvery River, South India

Abstract

This paper provides an insight into the reliability checking options through error assessment for analytical water quality data with a case study, which will be useful for the researchers working on the analytical chemistry. The reliability of chemical analysis has to be verified in a scientific manner before the data is used for further interpretation. The distributions of data values were presented using box plots. The four ion balancing methods, namely anion-cation balance, measured total dissolved solids (TDS) Vs calculated TDS, measured electrical conductivity (EC) Vs ion sums and calculated TDS to EC ratio were applied on the surface water quality data of Cauvery River in Erode region, Tamil Nadu, India. It was found that the errors of the analysis were within the acceptable limits except 14 samples in percentage difference calculations.