homogeneity and high external (between clusters) heterogeneity assist
in the interpretation of the output results. Because multivariate analysis
is sensitive to outliers and non-normality of geochemical data sets
(Chen et al., 2008;Hani and Pazira, 2011; Niu et al., 2013), elemental concentrations
were normalized prior to implementation of PCA and CA.
The first step in spatial analysis was the integration of the
georeferenced sampling points and the land use of the area according
to the Corine classification (EEA, 1994) using ArcMap v.10.0 (ArcGIS).
The geochemical maps showing the overall spatial distribution patterns
of elemental concentrations were generated by using the Geostatistical
Fig