1School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Chang'an University, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710054, China
2Key Laboratory of Subsurface Hydrology and Ecological Effect in Arid Region of Ministry of Education, Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710054, China
3Inner Second Exploration Institute of Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, 017000, China
*Corresponding author e-mail: wuhaocc@msn.com
Online published on 11 September, 2014.
In this study, an improved fuzzy comprehensive assessment for groundwater quality evaluation based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is proposed. Based on the data collected from the Menkeqing Groundwater Source, a case study was used to demonstrate the applicability of this method to evaluate groundwater quality using routine physiochemical indices. Instead of crisp sets in conventional quality standards, continuous-form standards are used in this paper, and the concentration of physiochemical indices are transformed into membership degrees based on fuzzy theory. At last, defuzzification of these membership degrees determine the classification results. The results are discussed compared with the comprehensive evaluation method (Nemerow index method). The case study demonstrates the practical validity and feasibility of this method.
Fuzzy comprehensive assessment, analytic hierarchy process, water quality evaluation, groundwater source, Ordos, Mu Us desert
