Evaluation of changes in spatial pattern of metals pollution in surface water using multivariate analysis: case study an urban basin from Buenos Aires, Argentina

The goal of this paper was to analyze changes in the spatial pattern of metals in water and determining the factors that may be associated with that distribution using the asymmetric eigenvector maps and redundancy analyses in the Matanza Riachuelo river (MRR), Argentina. Data from 2008 and 2014 of metal concentrations (As, Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, and Pb), water quality parameters and land cover variables from 38 samplings sites in the MRR were collected. The results obtained showed that the general spatial pattern of distribution of all the metals analyzed did not differ between both years and that the water flow was a factor that structured the distribution of metals in the river. The present study showed the utility of using these multivariate analyses to assess the dynamics of the spatial distribution of a group of metals in an urban basin.