Title

Groundwater Contaminant Concentrations of Land Use Categories for the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer, Texas

Document Type

Thesis

Comments

Presented to the Graduate Council of Texas State University-San Marcos in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Geography, May 2007.

Committee Members:
Richard Earl, Chair
Joanna Curran
Mark Fonstad

Approved:
J. Michael Willoughby, Dean of the Graduate College.

Library of Congress Subject Headings:
Groundwater--Pollution--Texas
Land use--Texas--Austin
Edwards Aquifer (Tex.)

View Alkek Library Cataloging Record

Abstract

Fourteen groundwater contaminants across the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer, Texas were monitored in order to test whether there is a significant correlation between their concentrations and land uses. The Kruskall-Wallis test was applied to each contaminant’s data set to test for differences in the median contaminant concentrations between each land use type. Regression analysis is also performed to determine whether the groundwater contaminant concentrations can be predicted based on percentage of each land use type. Six of the contaminants ( DB, Nitrobenzene, Phenol, Terphenyl, Tribromophenol, and Triphenyl Phosphate) showed correlation between concentration and the land use type, while quadratic regression proved to be the best regression model for prediction of the contaminant concentrations based on above ground percentage land use type area. Further work is still needed to verify the importance of land use applications and groundwater contaminant levels across the aquifer.