Purpose: Water quality is an important aspect of overall public health safety. Water quality varies with space and time. To maintain high quality of drinking and recreational water quality, understanding of factors that modify water quality is necessary. The purpose of this study is to document seasonal variation of water quality indicators in a North Central Texas area and to investigate a relationship between climate factors and those indicators.
Methods: The water quality monitoring data from 2001 to 2005 were obtained from City of Denton, Texas and the three water quality indicators were chosen to study the association with climate factors. The indicators were coliform bacteria count, nitrate concentration, and phosphate concentration. Climate factors were temperature and precipitation. The association was investigated with the analysis of Variance.
Results: Coliform bacteria levels show a peak concentration during the months of June and July, and appear to have an association with precipitation but not with temperature. Nitrate levels over a twelve-month period peak in the spring months and its concentration varies with precipitation, not by temperature. Orthophosphate levels show higher levels during the late summer through the winter months and their fluctuations were associated with precipitation but not by temperature.
Conclusions: Precipitation influences the concentration of coliform bacteria in the water as well as season. However, further analysis is needed to sufficiently show evidence of relationship