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Assessment of River Water Quality Based on Theory of Variable Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Binary Comparison Method

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Abstract

There has been an increasing need for the proper evaluation of river water quality in order to safeguard public health and to protect the valuable fresh water resources. In order to overcome the own limitations of the traditional evaluations which can only use a point value instead of an interval for grading standards, on the basis of the fuzzy binary comparison method (FBCM) and the theory of variable fuzzy sets (VFS), an integrated variable fuzzy evaluation model (VFEM) is proposed for the assessment of river water quality in this paper. This model possesses the preciseness of the algorithm and operability in practice, can well solve the grading standards which are interval form. In order to explore and compare the present method with other traditional methods, two cases studies in the Three Gorges and Tseng-Wen River are made. The results show that the proposed VFEM method can convey water cleanliness to certain degree by using the eigenvector of level H, which is much stricter in the superior level, and that it can improve the veracity for the assessment of water quality.

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Acknowledgment

This research was supported by Program for Science & Technology Innovation Talents in Universities of Henan Province (13HASTIT034), the foundation for University Backbone Teacher of Henan Province (2012GGJS-099) and Central Research Grant of Hong Kong Polytechnic University (4-ZZAD). We gratefully acknowledge the thorough and insightful comments by the editor and anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Water conservancy, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhengzhou, 450011, People’s Republic of China

    Wen-chuan Wang, Dong-mei Xu & Guan-jun Lei

  2. Water Resources and Flood Control, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116085, People’s Republic of China

    Dong-mei Xu

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Kwok-wing Chau

Authors
  1. Wen-chuan Wang
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  2. Dong-mei Xu
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  3. Kwok-wing Chau
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  4. Guan-jun Lei
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Correspondence to Wen-chuan Wang.

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Wang, Wc., Xu, Dm., Chau, Kw. et al. Assessment of River Water Quality Based on Theory of Variable Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Binary Comparison Method. Water Resour Manage 28, 4183–4200 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-014-0738-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-014-0738-4

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