## 6 Conclusions  
The use of factor analysis revealed that consistency limits, clay content, montmorillonite, and calcium carbonate content influence the plasticity characteristics of soils. These soil properties were reduced into two distinctive hypothetical variables to better interpolate the plasticity of soils. The analysis also revealed that clay content, consistency limits and montmorillonite content are all at once overlapping measures of plastic behaviour. After refining the plasticity of soils by factor analysis, the relation with sand content is improved. A regression analysis has been made to prove this fact. It is observed that there is a notable improvement in the coefficient of correlation. This concludes that the use of the proposed model would ideally yield a more accurate relationship between soil properties. This in fact, also indicates the use of the model and better represents the true plasticity characteristics of soils. Furthermore, discovering these relations indicates that this model better represents the plasticity of soils than using only laboratory-derived plasticity index. Therefore, considering the wide usage of the plasticity index in practical applications, as an input parameter, needs refinement. It is proven that the direct laboratory measures of plasticity do not completely incorporate the effect of other correlated soil properties. Therefore, the analysis also yielded the fact that characterising and classifying soils based on their plastic characteristics would be more accurate using this model rather than the plasticity index. All 207 soils were assigned individual factor scores each representing the plasticity characteristics. These soils were ranked based on the plasticity index and factor scores. A distinct observation was noticed that some of the soils were reordered when ranked by factor scores. These changes in the sorting are mainly due to the calculation procedure of the plasticity potential of soils, where each soil property, except calcium carbonate, was determined to best fit with an approximately equal contribution to soil plasticity. It is demonstrated that the plasticity characteristics of CL and MH soils are noticeably different. The plasticity of MH soils is controlled by calcium carbonate content. Some CL and CH soils were found to have similar plasticity characteristics. On the other hand, the plasticity of CH soils is controlled by consistency limits, clay content, and mineralogy altogether. There is no clear indication that one of the soil properties is more dominant than any other on the plasticity of CH soils. This contributes as a major finding for CH soils. The exploratory nature of the factor analysis also indicated that the natural calcium carbonate content affects the plasticity characteristics of the soils negatively. This outcome is directly observable by examining the soil properties loadings within the first factor, and it is partially hidden before performing this analysis. This outcome is also supported by the negative interrelation of the calcium carbonate content with the rest of the soil properties. Considering the positive effect of the liquid limit, plastic limit, clay, and montmorillonite content on the plasticity, the contrary relation of calcium carbonate indicated the negative effect on soil plasticity. Many statistical analyses require a trial-and-error procedure during the initial stages. In this case, the authors found out that the factor rotation changes the induvial factor scores. Thus, the overall representation of plasticity characteristics, as well as the proposed risk model along with the ranking of soils, change. Therefore, the authors recommend choosing the most appropriate method of factor rotation based on the aim of the study to prevent any misleading conclusion. The lack of statistics-related geotechnical research in Cyprus is the main reason that triggered this study. Therefore, only the available and reliable geotechnical data were collected. Eventually, this aspect yielded only CL, CH and MH types of soils.