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Assessment of groundwater vulnerability using supervised committee to combine fuzzy logic models

Environmental Science and Pollution Research volume 24, pages 8562–8577 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

Vulnerability indices of an aquifer assessed by different fuzzy logic (FL) models often give rise to differing values with no theoretical or empirical basis to establish a validated baseline or to develop a comparison basis between the modeling results and baselines, if any. Therefore, this research presents a supervised committee fuzzy logic (SCFL) method, which uses artificial neural networks to overarch and combine a selection of FL models. The indices are expressed by the widely used DRASTIC framework, which include geological, hydrological, and hydrogeological parameters often subject to uncertainty. DRASTIC indices represent collectively intrinsic (or natural) vulnerability and give a sense of contaminants, such as nitrate-N, percolating to aquifers from the surface. The study area is an aquifer in Ardabil plain, the province of Ardabil, northwest Iran. Improvements on vulnerability indices are achieved by FL techniques, which comprise Sugeno fuzzy logic (SFL), Mamdani fuzzy logic (MFL), and Larsen fuzzy logic (LFL). As the correlation between estimated DRASTIC vulnerability index values and nitrate-N values is as low as 0.4, it is improved significantly by FL models (SFL, MFL, and LFL), which perform in similar ways but have differences. Their synergy is exploited by SCFL and uses the FL modeling results “conditioned” by nitrate-N values to raise their correlation to higher than 0.9.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge gratefully the provision of data by the Ardabil Regional Water Authority.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tabriz, 29 Bahman Boulevard, Tabriz, East Azerbaijan, Iran

    Ata Allah Nadiri, Maryam Gharekhani & Asghar Asghari Moghaddam

  2. GTEV-ReX Limited, Swindon, UK

    Rahman Khatibi

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  1. Ata Allah Nadiri
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  2. Maryam Gharekhani
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  3. Rahman Khatibi
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  4. Asghar Asghari Moghaddam
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Correspondence to Ata Allah Nadiri.

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Nadiri, A.A., Gharekhani, M., Khatibi, R. et al. Assessment of groundwater vulnerability using supervised committee to combine fuzzy logic models. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 8562–8577 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-8489-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-8489-4

Keywords

  • Ardabil aquifer
  • Fuzzy logic
  • Supervised committee fuzzy logic (SCFL)
  • Vulnerability index