Indicator principal component kriging as a decision tool in assessing groundwater pollution

In a polluted groundwater environment the choice of a water well location becomes highly critical. Decisions based on estimates of a pollutant considered to be important are subject to error. Decision makers can avoid risks if they know the probabilities of exceedence of a critical threshold. Indicator principal component kriging may be a valuable tool in the evaluation of these exceedance probabilities. This paper describes applications of the methodology to groundwater pollution problems. The paper presents the variograms of the indicator principal components for nitrate concentration in groundwater samples taken from the Eskisehir plain. It maps the conditional probabilities that the true values are greater than the recommended maximum for nitrate.