Development of river water quality management using fuzzy techniques: a review

ABSTRACT

Fuzzy theory is a powerful tool with the capability of solving many complex problems which include river water quality assessment when dealing with uncertainties data and vagueness that occur in a river system. In this paper, various fuzzy techniques are applied in the development of river water quality management; particularly, water quality index assessment is outlined. Uncertainties involved in river water quality management, especially from random nature of hydrologic variables and missing data, can be overcome using fuzzy techniques. Fuzzy interference system (FIS) plays an important role in fuzzy excursion. FIS can be improved using other methods such as similarity measures and grey clustering method to obtain better and accurate water quality assessment results. FIS can also be integrated with an expert system and a decision support system to assist the decision-maker in improving river water quality through effective strategies. Thus, the capability of FIS to be incorporated with other techniques such as grey clustering, artificial neural network, and expert system to provide a comprehensive solution in order to control river pollution is demonstrated.

Keywords:

• Fuzzy inference system (FIS)
• river water quality management
• uncertainty
• WQI

Acknowledgements

The authors express a deep appreciation to the Institute for Infrastructure Engineering and Sustainability Management (IIESM), Universiti Teknologi Mara, Shah Alam, Malaysia, and Department of Civil Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia, for providing essential support and knowledge for the work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.