TY - JOUR
T1 - Combining rough sets and GIS techniques to assess aquifer vulnerability characteristics in the semi-arid South Texas
AU - Uddameri, V.
AU - Honnungar, V.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments Financial support from the National Science Foundation—Combined Research and Curriculum Development (CRCD) program (Award No: 0203482) is gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 2007/1
Y1 - 2007/1
N2 - The coastal semi-arid region of South Texas is undergoing significant growth causing an enormous burden on its limited water resources. Understanding regional-scale vulnerability of this resource is important for sustainable water resources management and land use development. In this study, DRASTIC methodology is integrated with an information-analytic technique called rough sets to understand groundwater vulnerability characteristics in 18 different counties of South Texas. The rough set theory provides three useful metrics: the strength factor which depicts how vulnerability characteristics occur over the area; the certainty factor computes the relative probabilities for various vulnerability states within a county and the coverage factor which elucidates the fraction of a specific vulnerability state present in each county. The coupling of rough sets with GIS is particularly advantageous to cluster counties exhibiting similar vulnerability characteristics and to obtain other related insights. The application of the approach indicates that the groundwater vulnerability exhibits greater variability along the coast than in the interior sections of the area. The shallow aquifer in Aransas, DeWitt, Goliad and Gonzales counties is the most vulnerable, while the aquifer in Duval, Jim Wells, Karnes, Live Oak, Nueces and San Patricio is less vulnerable. This approach should prove useful to regional planners and environmental managers entrusted with the protection of groundwater resources.
AB - The coastal semi-arid region of South Texas is undergoing significant growth causing an enormous burden on its limited water resources. Understanding regional-scale vulnerability of this resource is important for sustainable water resources management and land use development. In this study, DRASTIC methodology is integrated with an information-analytic technique called rough sets to understand groundwater vulnerability characteristics in 18 different counties of South Texas. The rough set theory provides three useful metrics: the strength factor which depicts how vulnerability characteristics occur over the area; the certainty factor computes the relative probabilities for various vulnerability states within a county and the coverage factor which elucidates the fraction of a specific vulnerability state present in each county. The coupling of rough sets with GIS is particularly advantageous to cluster counties exhibiting similar vulnerability characteristics and to obtain other related insights. The application of the approach indicates that the groundwater vulnerability exhibits greater variability along the coast than in the interior sections of the area. The shallow aquifer in Aransas, DeWitt, Goliad and Gonzales counties is the most vulnerable, while the aquifer in Duval, Jim Wells, Karnes, Live Oak, Nueces and San Patricio is less vulnerable. This approach should prove useful to regional planners and environmental managers entrusted with the protection of groundwater resources.
KW - Data mining
KW - Fuzzy logic
KW - Geographic information systems
KW - Multi-criteria decision making
KW - Soft computing
KW - South Texas
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33846053591&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00254-006-0456-1
DO - 10.1007/s00254-006-0456-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33846053591
VL - 51
SP - 931
EP - 939
JO - Environmental Geology
JF - Environmental Geology
SN - 0943-0105
IS - 6
ER -