Dynamic assessment of water quality based on a variable fuzzy pattern recognition model

• Published in: International journal of environmental research and public health 2015-02, Vol.12 (2), p.2230-2248
• Main Authors: Xu, Shiguo, Wang, Tianxiang, Hu, Suduan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: China; Environmental Monitoring - methods; Fuzzy Logic; Models, Theoretical; Pattern Recognition, Automated - methods; Reservoirs; Water - chemistry; Water Pollutants, Chemical - chemistry; Water Quality; Water resources
• ISSN: 1660-4601; 1661-7827; 1660-4601
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph120202230

Water quality assessment is an important foundation of water resource protection and is affected by many indicators. The dynamic and fuzzy changes of water quality lead to problems for proper assessment. This paper explores a method which is in accordance with the water quality changes. The proposed method is based on the variable fuzzy pattern recognition (VFPR) model and combines the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) model with the entropy weight (EW) method. The proposed method was applied to dynamically assess the water quality of Biliuhe Reservoir (Dailan, China). The results show that the water quality level is between levels 2 and 3 and worse in August or September, caused by the increasing water temperature and rainfall. Weights and methods are compared and random errors of the values of indicators are analyzed. It is concluded that the proposed method has advantages of dynamism, fuzzification and stability by considering the interval influence of multiple indicators and using the average level characteristic values of four models as results.