On the application of cluster analysis for vegetation pollution assessment in the area of mining enterprise

Abstract

The assessment of vegetation contamination in the influence area of mining enterprises is an important part of the research during the environment monitoring. There are different statistical methods that can be used for the analysis of data obtained in environmental monitoring. The article presents the results of cluster analysis of the chemical composition of agricultural vegetation samples collected in the area of copper-pyrite ore deposit location. During the analysis, all samples were divided into three clusters. One can suggest that this separation may be due to different mechanisms of pollutants entry into the particular sampling sites, as well as to the location of these sampling sites relatively to the enterprise industrial area. According to the results of the study, it can be concluded that cluster analysis is an effective tool for distinguishing the zones being characterized by different pollution mechanisms of grassy vegetation, when there are a small number of measurements and relatively low levels of the samples pollution. © 2019 Author(s).