Groundwater Quality Evaluation of Tehran Province for Agricultural Uses by Fuzzy Inference Model

Water quality management is a global important issue. In this study, the application of the Fuzzy Set Theory to evaluate groundwater quality for agricultural purposes is shown. The Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation Model gives the certainty levels for the acceptability of the agricultural water based on the prescribed limit of various regulatory bodies’ quality classes. In this research, seven groundwater parameters including Sodium Absorption Ratio, Total Dissolved Solids, Sodium Solution Percent, Chloride, Sulphate, Sodium, and Bicarbonate, which are important for evaluation of groundwater quality for agricultural purposes, were used. Therefore, the qualitative data of groundwater from 178 wells in the period 2009-2010 in Tehran province, Iran, were used. Based on the Fuzzy Water Quality Model, the groundwater quality was classified in three categories; desirable, acceptable and unacceptable. Results showed only 134 out of 178 Samples were in the desirable class with certainty level of 36.5 to 76.3 percent. About 38 samples were classified in the acceptable category whose certainty level ranged from 23.7 to 54.5 percent and the remaining 6 samples were in the unacceptable category with the maximum certainty level of 28.7 percent.