Ayenew, Tenalem (Professer)Wogi, Workitu2019-04-112023-11-042019-04-112023-11-046/3/2018http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/17821The quality of water is a serious issue for developing countries. Hence, evaluation of water quality in terms of physiochemical parameter is a crucial point to determine water quality for various purposes. This research was conducted on the western part of Upper Awash River basin, Central Ethiopia to examine the quality of water. Thus, the hydrochemistry of water by using Aquachem software and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) was analyzed from the perspective of physiochemical parameters. For the analysis, twenty-six water samples were collected and additionally more secondary data from previous work were used to categorize water types into clusters. Furthermore, an assessment of water quality for various purposes was also carried out. As the hydrochemical analysis indicates, the sodium and bicarbonate are the study area’s dominant cations and anions, respectively. The concentration of sodium varies from 9.58mg/l to 255.1mg/l, whereas the concentration of bicarbonate ranges from 44.8 mg/l to 866 mg/l. The lowest value of Electrical Conductivity (EC) and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) was measured in the spring water sample (S3) which indicate that groundwater less mineralized in the area. In the area, water types were also identified by using piper diagram. The identified types are NaCaHCO3, CaNaHCO3, CaMgNaHCO3, CaHCO3 and NaHCO3. On the other hand, a hierarchical cluster analysis method was used to group water into four water groups and six sub-groups. Group one and group three are mainly distributed in the plateau area, whereas group two was identified in the area covered by tertiary acidic volcanic rocks. An attempt has been made to identify the quality of water for domestic, irrigation, and industrial purposes. As indicated by the plots of Wilcox Diagram, all water samples except few samples can be said to be suitable for irrigation purposes. Moreover, groundwater in the study area is suitable for domestic uses. However, there are exceptions that the discharges of domestic and industrial wastes lead to deterioration of water that needs proper follow up.enWater qualityWestern part of Upper Awash basinphysiochemical parameterswater typeHCAand piper diagramThesis