Water quality warnings based on cluster analysis in Colombian river basins

Authors

  • Edwin Ferney Castillo Universidad del Cauca, Popayán
  • Wilmer Fernando Gonzales Universidad del Cauca, Popayán
  • David Camilo Corrales Universidad del Cauca, Popayán
  • Iván Darío López Universidad del Cauca, Popayán
  • Miller Guzmán Hoyos Universidad del Cauca, Popayán
  • Apolinar Figueroa Universidad del Cauca, Popayán
  • Juan Carlos Corrales Universidad del Cauca, Popayán

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18046/syt.v13i33.2077

Keywords:

Clustering, water quality data, aquatic macro-invertebrates, taxon, C.4.5 decision tree.

Abstract

Fresh water is considered one of the most important renewable natural resources in the world. Among all the countries, Colombia is one of the places with the highest water supply, and has five watersheds: the Caribbean, Orinoco, Amazon, Pacific and Catatumbo. It is therefore vital to study and evaluate the water quality of the rivers and/or lotic systems. In recent studies, some scientists made use of biological indices to calculate water quality, while others detected water quality through machine learning techniques. However, these studies do not allow users to easily interpret the results. These investigations motivated us to propose a dataset for generating water quality alerts in Piedras river basin based on the analysis of the K-Means clustering algorithm and C.4.5 classification technique.

Author Biographies

  • Edwin Ferney Castillo, Universidad del Cauca, Popayán

    Currently an undergraduate student of the last semester in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering at Universidad del Cauca, Colombia. His research interests focus on machine learning, data analysis and the area of Telecommunications and Telematics.

  • Wilmer Fernando Gonzales, Universidad del Cauca, Popayán
    Currently an undergraduate student of the last semester in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering at Universidad del Cauca, Colombia. His research interests focus on machine learning, data analysis and the area of Telematics.
  • David Camilo Corrales, Universidad del Cauca, Popayán

    Received degrees in Informatics Engineering and Master in Telematics Engineering at Universidad del Cauca, Colombia, in 2011 and 2014 respectively. Currently a PhD student in Telematics Engineering at the Universidad del Cauca and Science and Informatics Technologies at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. His research interests focus on data mining, machine learning and data analysis.

  • Iván Darío López, Universidad del Cauca, Popayán

    Received the Engineering degree in Information Systems from Universidad del Cauca, Colombia, in 2011, and is an MSc student in Telematics Engineering in the same institute. His current research interests are applications of computational intelligence techniques to modeling and data mining problems.

  • Miller Guzmán Hoyos, Universidad del Cauca, Popayán

    Biologist at Universidad del Cauca, Colombia, and currently an MSc student in Continental Hydrobiological Resources in the same institute. Currently also a researcher at the hydro-biological component of the Group for Environmental Studies at the Universidad del Cauca. His research interests focus on water quality based on benthic macro-invertebrates and water physical and chemical characteristics.

  • Apolinar Figueroa, Universidad del Cauca, Popayán

    Received a degree in biology from Universidad del Cauca, Colombia, in 1982, a master’s degree in Ecology from Universidad de Barcelona, Spain, in 1986, and a PhD in Biological Sciences from Universidad de Valencia, Spain, in 1999. Presently, he is full Professor and leads the Environmental Studies Group at Universidad del Cauca. His research interests focus on environmental impact assessment and biodiversity management.

  • Juan Carlos Corrales, Universidad del Cauca, Popayán

    Engineer (1999) and Master in Telematics Engineering (2004) from the Universidad del Cauca, Colombia, and PhD in sciences, specialty Computer Science, from the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France (2008). Presently, he is full time Professor and leads the Telematics Engineering Group at the Universidad del Cauca. His research interests focus on service composition and data analysis.

Downloads

Published

2015-06-30

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 33 (2015)

Section

Original Research

License

This journal is licensed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode).