Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252

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Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Original Articles

Groundwater quality classification derivation using

Multi-Criteria-Decision-Making techniques
Sina Zahedi a,∗ , Ali Azarnivand b , Nastaran Chitsaz c
a
Department of Renewable Energies and Environment, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, 31587-77871, Iran
b
Department of Irrigation & Reclamation Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering & Technology, College of Agriculture & Natural Resources,
University of Tehran, Karaj, Tehran, Iran
c
University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The paper introduces a novel framework of evaluating and validating the groundwater quality index
Received 26 November 2016 (GWQI) by employing two Multi-Criteria-Decision-Making models (MCDMs) such as Technique for Order
Received in revised form 3 March 2017 of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Compromise Programming (CP). GWQIs are
Accepted 7 March 2017
plagued by discrete values which are attributed to excellent, good, poor, very poor, and unsuitable for
drinking purpose classes. Furthermore, the existence of chemical parameters with low weights but high
Keywords:
concentration values (or vice versa) reduces equilibrium of evaluations. Based on the literature review,
Groundwater
MCDMs have not been applied so far to validate groundwater quality indexes. This simple yet practical
Multi Criteria Decision Making
Water Quality Index (WQI)
structure assists the analysts to investigate robustness of a water quality index. In order to validate the
Arid region classes, the intervals of classic GWQI were modified to figure out what changes were made to the classes of
Drinking purpose samples in the ranking table considering quality of 92 wells in the Varamin plain, Iran. After employment
of the MCDMs, the results revealed that WQI could rarely evaluate water quality classes accurately.
Several wells which were classified as “excellent quality” were belonged to the lower quality class. It also
came true for other classes. The results demonstrated that TOPSIS could present a more precise analysis
for the classes with a low number of wells. Moreover, increases in value of the sensitivity parameter of
CP technique reduced the accuracy of results. Owing to proper application of MCDMs, one can suggest
the use and development of MCDM-based water quality assessment models for future researches.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction level besides the groundwater quality degradation (Srinivas et al.,

Groundwater is one of the major existing water resources
and is being used by a large number of the world population
for their basic needs such as drinking, agricultural activities and
industries specifically in arid and semiarid regions (Wu and Sun,
2016; Li et al., 2016b; Chitsaz and Azarnivand, 2016). In gen-
eral, population growth accompanied by the ascending trend of
urbanization, agriculture and industrialization in the developing
countries have imposed unsustainable demands on the natu-
ral aquifer systems (Krishan et al., 2016; Howard and Howard,
2016; Li et al., 2015). In addition, over-exploitation and indiscreet
use of groundwater has influenced the groundwater availability
and quality, having led to a noticeable decline of groundwater
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: Zahedi.Sina@ut.ac.ir (S. Zahedi), Azarnivand ali@ut.ac.ir
(A. Azarnivand), Nastaranchitsaz@ut.ac.ir (N. Chitsaz).
2015). Therefore, in order to meet the requirements in a broad
area of applications, quality of the groundwater resources is as
important as its quantity, and should be essentially taken into
a full consideration (Aghazadeh and Asghari-Mogaddam, 2010).
The quality of recharged water, atmospheric precipitation, inland
surface water, and sub-surface geochemical processes affect the
groundwater quality (Vasanthavigar et al., 2010). Consequently,
groundwater contamination threatens the human health, eco-
nomic development and social prosperity (Milovanovic, 2007). In
Iran, Groundwater plays a central role for drinking purposes, and
satisfying agricultural, domestic and industrial water demands
(Sadat-Noori et al., 2013). An imprudent exploitation of groundwa-
ter resources accompanied by consecutive droughts in recent years
has degraded the quality of groundwater and decreased ground-
water level of aquifers in Iran (Hosseinifar and Mirzaei Aminiyan,
2015). For instance, results of a research in Kashan province of Iran
revealed that just 47% of water samples were unsuitable for irri-
gation (Jamshidzadeh and Mirbagheri, 2010). Throughout another

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.03.015
1470-160X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
244 S. Zahedi et al. / Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252
research regarding groundwater quality assessment of Amol-Babol
Plain, Iran, the thematic maps of salinity hazard and Na+ percent-
age showed that the water quality deteriorated gradually across
the plain (Narany et al., 2015).
Several methods have already been developed, in order to pro-
vide adequate groundwater quality indicators for different regions.
Water Quality Index (WQI), developed by Brown et al. (1970), is
one of the most commonly used methods for assessment and man-
agement of groundwater quality (Hosseini-Moghari et al., 2015;
Mosaferi et al., 2015; Annapoorna and Janardhana, 2015; Sadat-
Noori et al., 2013; Rizwan and Gurdeep, 2010; Saeedi et al., 2010;
Backman et al., 1998).
On the other hand, many investigators believe that this method
has some structural drawbacks preventing it to achieve desirable
results. WQI is evaluated based on summation of relative weights of
each chemical parameter. As a result, a well could possibly present
a higher WQI value just because of considerable amount of a con-
centration in one chemical parameter which has a high weight. On
the other hand, a well with lower concentration in that high-weigh
parameter but higher values in other parameters might present a
lower WQI. Moreover, changes in significance of each parameter
would adversely affect the results of classifications considerably
which can be associated with unrealistic relative weights. In this
regard, Lermontov et al. (2009) described that utilizing the classic
WQI could lead to create deterministic and inflexible classifica-
tions related to inaccuracies in knowledge and data. In line with
the above issue, Dahiya et al. (2007) elucidated that the final score
of WQI could be dramatically influenced without a valid scientific
justification by some parameters in the index equations.
With this knowledge in hand, an effective tool is needed to mit-
igate the aforementioned shortcomings. Some investigators have
used methods such as Schoeller diagram. However, because of high
sensitivity to the values of each parameter, this technique might
lead to generation of unreality-based outcomes. In Schoeller dia-
gram method, violation of only one parameter from the proposed
standard is expected to penalize all the parameters. Hence, devel-
opment of a tool for reliable and flexible decision-making in water
quality assessment seems to be vital (Nikolić et al., 2010). Some
attempts have been made to improve efficiency of WQI in the liter-
ature by improving the weight’s calculation and considering fuzzy
boundaries. Li et al. (2010) integrated WQI and entropy weight
to improve the objectivity of the approach, and their results indi-
cated that the entropy-weighted WQI could make the assessment
results more objective and reasonable. Li et al. (2014) further inte-
grated fuzzy theory into the entropy-weighted WQI to treat the
uncertainty associated with water quality classification.
The current research applies Multi Criteria Decision Making
(MCDM) techniques to check validation of WQI classes which has
not captured the investigators attention. Two MCDMs, namely,
compromise programming (CP), and technique for order preference
by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) with different mathemat-
ical assumptions are used in the current study. MCDMs have
shown efficient performance in such fields as agricultural water
quality assessment (Hernandez and Uddameri, 2010), water qual-
ity monitoring (Khan and Maity, 2016; Chang and Lin, 2014; Li
et al., 2012), natural hazard management (Chitsaz and Banihabib,
2015), health risk assessment (Li et al., 2016a), reservoir operation
(Bozorg-Haddad et al., 2016a,b), soil erosion alleviation (Chitsaz
and Malekian, 2016), biodiversity rehabilitation (Azarnivand and
Banihabib, 2016). Ning and Chang (2005) suggested CP as a robust
tool because of its appropriate application in screening the relo-
cation strategies of water quality monitoring stations. A combined
application of TOPSIS method and entropy weight along with utiliz-
ing rough set theory showed flexibility of this technique in water
quality monitoring (Li et al., 2011, 2013b). According to Li et al.
(2013a,c), TOPSIS performed properly in sensitivity analysis of dif-
ferent physiochemical parameters’ weights.
According to the literature review, various improvements and
applications have been be associated with MCDMs in uncertainty
analysis, sensitivity analysis and prioritization mechanism. How-
ever, the current paper uses MCDMs to answer the following
questions: (1) Are the classifications of WQI accurate? (2) Can dif-
ferent assumptions of the MCDMs affect the ranking of wells in each
class? (3) Are MCDMs sensitive to numbers of wells in each water
quality class?
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Case study
Located in south east of Tehran province, Varamin plain lies
between 51◦ 23’ to 51◦ 54’ longitude and 35◦ 07’ to 35◦ 32’ lati-
tude in the center of Iran (Fig. 1a). The area of this plain is about
1042.3 Km2 while its mean altitude is about 808–1161 m above
mean sea level (AMSL). The climate of the area is arid and semi-arid,
considering Dommartin and Ambreje categories, respectively, with
an annual precipitation amount equal to 157.5 mm. The Precipita-
tion data obtained from meteorological stations demonstrated that
rainfall generally occurs from October to May with maximum and
minimum rate in March and October, respectively. Moreover, the
mean annual temperature is about 16.4 ◦ C and also the minimum
and maximum mean monthly temperatures are measured to be
about 1.7 ◦ C in January and 30.1 ◦ C in July, respectively. According
to the Land-use map of the plain, agriculture is the main industry
in Varamin (Fig. 1b).
Tehran Regional Water Authority (TRWA) is responsible for
monitoring wells related to water quality. In this region 92 wells
are being monitored every six months in order to measure water
quality from 2002 to 2014. In order to analyze groundwater quality
of the aquifer, the samples were transferred to central laboratory of
TRWA. The available parameters included T.H, S.A.R, K, Na, Mg, Ca,
HCO3 , Cl, SO4 , pH, T.D.S, E.C, and NO3 (Table 1). In addition, obser-
vation wells are monitored every month to evaluate groundwater
table and aquifer loss. According to Fig. 1(c), groundwater level has
decreased to 35 m from 1990 to 2014. This situation revealed the
occurrence of a marked over-exploitation in the region.
2.2. Water quality index
Water Quality Index (WQI) is defined as a technique of rating to
prepare the composite effect of individual water quality parameter
on the overall quality of water. Moreover, it can be calculated based
on the viewpoints of human water consumption. Indeed, evaluation
of groundwater quality for drinking determines its suitability for
different purposes based upon the specific standards set by various
agencies including the drinking water standards of World Health
Organization (WHO, 2004). In this method, the weights of various
water quality parameters are assumed to be inversely proportional
to the recommended standards for the corresponding parameters.
According to their influence on primary health, a weight factor
should be determined for each of the ten parameters, including
K+ , Na+ , Ca+ , Mg+ , SO4 + , HCO− 3 , Cl− , NO− 3 , TDS, and pH.
The relative weight factors can be calculated for all parameters
using Eq. (1), according to their perceived weights in Table 2.
wi
Wi = n (1)
i=1
wi
where (wi ) and (Wi ) are respectively the weight and relative weight
of each chemical parameter.
 S. Zahedi et al. / Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252 245

Fig. 1. (A): Location of the studied area and the observation wells, (B): The land-use map of the studied area, (C): Average annual groundwater level of the study area during
1990–2013.

Table 1
The location and the average amount of each chemical parameter among years 2002–2014.

Wells Codes num1 num2 num3 num4 ... ... ... num90 num91 num92

UTM (X) 548261 548666 549500 549900 ... ... ... 577600 578500 579300
UTM (Y) 3912390 3915434 3901150 3913100 ... ... ... 3915800 3919000 3918800
Wilcox c4-s3 c4-s3 c4-s2 c4-s4 ... ... ... c3-s1 c3-s1 c2-s1
T.Ha (mg/L) 1800 2210 1025 545 ... ... ... 212 283 268
S.A.Rb 9.43 10.1 7.61 2.36 ... ... ... 3.54 3.56 0.70
T.D.Sc (mg/L) 4720 5471 3230 585 ... ... ... 687 803 400
pHd 8.02 7.37 7.18 7.83 ... ... ... 8.07 7.96 7.80
E.Ce (␮s/m) 6760 7930 4750 1590 ... ... ... 1025 1178 650
Cations (mEq/L) 76.2 92 45.1 16.4 ... ... ... 9.49 11.76 6.54
K (mg/L) 7.04 9.77 10.6 1.95 ... ... ... 4.30 4.69 1.17
Na (mg/L) 920 1092 560 126 ... ... ... 118 137.48 26.44
Mg (mg/L) 293 316 134 53.5 ... ... ... 23.2 28.44 19.57
Ca (mg/L) 239 365 190 130 ... ... ... 46.5 66.53 75.15
Anions (mEq/L) 74.2 93.2 45.8 15.9 ... ... ... 9.41 11.91 6.90
HCO3 (mg/L) 444 422 260 325 ... ... ... 216 209.90 161.69
Cl (mg/L) 752 1461 535 255 ... ... ... 84.02 146.42 39
SO4 (mg/L) 2181 2151 1260 149 ... ... ... 163.31 203.65 136.89
NO3 (mg/L) 0.30 0.30 0.20 0.30 ... ... ... 0.10 0.10 0.30
a
Total hardness.
b
Sodium adsorption ratio.
c
Total dissolved solids.
d
Potential of hydrogen.
e
Electrical conductivity.

The quality rating of each parameter is calculated using Eq. (2), Then, the sub quality index of each parameter (SIi ) should be cal-
in which concentration of each chemical parameter (Ci ) is divided culated by multiplication of their specific relative weights to their
by their WHO standard values (Si ), as shown in Table 2. quality rating scale, as referred in Eq. (3).

Ci
qi = × 100 (2)
Si SIi = qi × Wi (3)
246 S. Zahedi et al. / Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252

Fig. 2. Spatial distribution map of the WQI classification using Kriging method.

Table 2 Table 3
The weight (wi ) and relative weight (Wi ) of each chemical parameter. Classification of groundwater quality according to WQI.

Parameter WHO Standards (mg/L) Weight (wi ) Relative weights (Wi ) WQI range Type of Groundwater

K 12 2 0.056 <50 Excellent water

Na 200 4 0.111 50–99.99 Good water
Mg 50 3 0.083 100–199.99 Poor Water
Ca 75 3 0.083 200–299.99 Very poor water
HCO3 120 1 0.028 ≥300 Unsuitable for drinking purpose
Cl 250 5 0.139
SO4 250 5 0.139
pH 8.5 3 0.083 lyzing the spatial distribution of groundwater quality index. Spatial
T.D.S 500 5 0.139
analyst extension of Arc Map 9.3 was applied to reveal the spatial-
NO3 45 5
 
0.139
temporal condition of the groundwater quality parameters. Kriging
wi = 36 Wi = 1
method has also been employed so as to evaluate groundwater
quality conditions of the study area. The details of GIS application
and Kriging method can be found in Goovaerts (1997), ESRI (1999),
Finally, the water quality index of each sample can be computed
and the Supplementary material.
by summing all sub-indices, as defined in Eq. (4).

WQI = SIi (4) 2.3. Modified classification for water quality index

Subsequently, computed WQI value of each sample is specified
to determine the class of groundwater quality. As mentioned in
Table 3, the groundwater can be classified into the five categories
of excellent, good, poor, very poor, and unsuitable for human con-
sumption.
Table 3 The classifications and water quality status must be
visualized by maps. In this paper, ARC GIS 9.3 was employed for ana-
The MCDMs such as TOPSIS and CP are applied to validate the
WQI results. Employment of MCDMs may affect the ranks of wells
and cause some fluctuations. For instance, if the changes occur
in boundaries of two classes, a well in lower class of WQI may
gain a better rank in MCDM models and even ascend to a better
classification. Therefore, the wells’ ranks should be assessed with
consideration of overlaps in different classes. The new classification
 S. Zahedi et al. / Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252 247

Fig. 3. The WQI Values of used wells for classes: (a) Excellent water (0–50), (b) Good water (50,100), (c) Poor Water (100, 200), (d) Very poor water (200, 300), (e) Unsuitable
for drinking purpose (300 ≤ WQI).

of WQI method is as follows: WQI < 75 is considered as excellent classification, 51 wells are obtained as excellent water quality, 49
quality while WQI > 300 is unsuitable for drinking. The ranges of wells have good water quality, eight wells have poor water, eight
50 < WQI < 150, 100 < WQI < 250 and 200 < WQI < 350 are classified wells have very poor water and water of 16 wells are considered
as good, poor and very poor water quality, respectively. In this new unfit for drinking. Some wells sit in similar classes. The overlaps in
248 S. Zahedi et al. / Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252

Fig. 4. Final rank of each well using WQI, CP (p = 1), CP (p = 2), CP (p = ∞) and TOPSIS for classes (a) Excellent water, (b) Good water (c), Poor Water, (d) Very poor water.

ranges help us to investigate actual class of wells whose WQI values The measurement of the distance is based upon the p parameter,
are close to the boundary values. where Zeleny (1973) suggested 1, 2 and ∞ for p. The Eq. (6) is cor-
responded to Block distance and Euclidean distance, respectively.
2.4. Multi criteria decision making methods Furthermore, employment of ∞ for p in Eq. (6) is corresponded to
the Tchebycheff distance as follows (Pomerol and Barba-Romero,
Three basic elements involving criteria, alternatives and per- 2000):
formances of each alternative under each criterion constitute the ⎛ ⎞
structure of an MCDM problem (Madani and Lund, 2011). Two tech-
⎜ ⎟
niques involving TOPSIS and CP were used in this study as follows: ⎜ Wj ∗
fj − fij⎟
Assuming a decision matrix involving m wells and n chemical Lp (Welli ) = Max ⎜
⎜ × ∗ ⎟ (7)
fj − fj ⎟
n −
parameters, with the intersection of each well and chemical given ⎝ ⎠
Wj
as Vij , one can evaluate the rank of each well via TOPSIS by the
following formula in maximizing the Cj∗ (Hwang and Yoon, 1981): j=1


n 2 3. Results and discussion
(V
j=1 ij
− Vj− )
Cj∗ =   (5)
n n 2 According to WQI results, 20 wells out of 92 wells are classified
(V
j=1 ij
− Vj∗ )2 + (V − Vj− )
j=1 ij in the Excellent water classification with WQI values smaller than
50, while 45 wells are obtained in the range of 50 < WQI < 100 which
where Vj∗ , Vj− , and Cj∗ are weighted ideal and negative-ideal solu-
are considered as good water. Based on WQI indexes and wells’
tion, and similarity ratio, respectively.
locations in the case study, most of the wells with WQI < 100 are
Another prioritization method is CP which evaluates the wells’
located in central and eastern part of the Varamin plain. In addition,
ranks by Formula (6). Among the wells, the best one has the least
the number of wells which are classified in poor water and very
distance from the ideal point (Zeleny, 1973).
poor water are six and five wells, respectively. In total, 16 wells out
⎡ ⎛ ⎞p ⎤1/p of 92 wells of the case study are determined unsuitable for drinking
purpose (Figs. 2 and 3).
⎢ n ⎜ ⎟ ⎥
⎢ ⎜ Wj ∗
fj − fij⎟ ⎥ The ranks of wells in each MCDM and WQI method for four
Lp (Welli ) = ⎢
⎢
⎜
⎜ n × ∗ ⎟ ⎥ (6)
fj − fj ⎟ ⎥
− classes of water quality are shown by Fig. 4. In WQI method, rank
⎣ j=1 ⎝  ⎠ ⎦ for each well in each class is defined according to its WQI value. For
Wj
instance, the well with the lowest value of WQI in excellent class
j=1
is ranked as the first one, while the well with the highest WQI is
where Lp (Welli ) represents the distance of the well to the ideal solu- ranked 51 (among 51 wells) in the same class. This method of rank-
tion. fj∗ and fj− bare ideal and negative-ideal solutions, respectively. ing is repeated for other classes. In good water range, the well in
 S. Zahedi et al. / Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252 249

Fig. 5. Coefficient of determination for classes (a) Excellent water (0–75), (b) Good water (50–150), (c) Poor Water (100–250), (d) very poor water (200–350).

the first rank has the lowest WQI and the 49th well has the highest
WQI value.
The results of unfit water for drinking purpose can be found
in Fig. 1 of the Supplementary material and are not interfered in
the rest of calculation due to the fact that this class is not used for
drinking purpose.
According to Fig. 4(a) in the TOPSIS and the CP for different val-
ues of p, wells’ ranks faced considerable fluctuations. For instance,
although WQI value for the well number 51 was equal to 42.96,
which gave the 8th rank to the well, and placed it in the excellent
water class, its rank descended to 15, 15, 26 and 12 for CP(p = 1),
CP(p = 2), CP(p = ∞) and TOPSIS, respectively. The changes in rank-
ing lists were more touchable for wells which belonged to the
excellent and good water classes and the wells in classical WQI
range. In another example, although the well number 71 with WQI
value of 46.69 was classified in the excellent water class, its rank in
CP was worse than well number 66, well number 35, well number
83, and well number 61 which were classified in good water class
with WQI values of 50.61, 50.80, 50.92 and 51.29, respectively. This
well’s rank in TOPSIS was 8. The factor which increases the rank of
this well in CP model is its higher amount of HCO3 (220 mg/L) in
comparison to other wells. It should be noticed that HCO3 has the
least effect on WQI values because of its low relative weight (0.027).
This well has the highest level of HCO3 among the 25 top-ranked
wells of excellent water class yet, after performing normalization of
the dataset for TOPSIS method, the mentioned considerable change
occurred. In addition, the high level of Ca and Cl in this well is
another reason for its rank degradation. According to high amount
of SO4 in wells number 66, 35, 83 and 61 and the significance of
this parameter in WQI method with high weight of 0.138, the good
rank of well number 71 is acceptable. The results of comparison
between these four wells can be seen in Table 4.
250 S. Zahedi et al. / Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252

Table 4
The results of comparison between available four wells of new method range.

WELLS K Na Mg Ca HCO3 Cl SO4 pH T.D.S NO3 WQI Value

num71 2.74 64.4 24.3 50.7 220 89.7 69.7 7.7 383 0.1 46.7
num66 3.13 59.1 25.8 48.1 148 69.1 129 8.25 490 0.3 50.6
num35 3.13 107 15.2 25.9 124 70.9 155 8.27 521 0.1 50.8
num83 3.13 69.2 20.9 46.3 174 67.4 112 7.83 548 0.4 50.9
num61 2.74 98.9 22.6 32.5 146 46.1 162 8.55 498 0.01 51.3

Table 5
Some examples of changes in ranks of the wells according to the classes.

WQI Range WELL’s Code WQI Compromise programing (CP) TOPSIS Average

num(␹) Value Rank p=1 Rank p=2 Rank p=∞ Rank C* Rank Rank

0–75 num47 42.3 7 3.14 14 1.14 14 0.72 23 0.76 17 13

num87 45.6 13 2.75 6 1.01 6 0.6 13 0.85 10 7
num51 43 8 3.24 15 1.15 15 0.75 26 0.83 12 14
num58 44.1 11 3.09 12 1.05 9 0.59 12 0.9 7 8
num71 46.7 16 4.01 25 1.44 28 0.84 33 0.87 8 22
num85 51.4 26 2.91 8 1.07 11 0.56 9 0.57 27 15
num64 49.8 20 3.62 21 1.42 27 0.85 34 0.78 15 25
num66 50.6 21 3.86 24 1.23 18 0.47 5 0.64 23 16

50–150 num31 51.3 5 1.79 4 0.76 6 0.54 10 0.99 8 6

num85 51.4 6 1.06 1 0.41 1 0.24 1 0.99 5 1
num55 98.5 45 5.75 48 1.95 48 0.92 40 0.39 46 48
num17 100 47 4.79 43 1.66 40 0.81 33 0.61 40 42
num23 100 46 5.31 47 1.95 47 1 44 0.54 41 47
num27 109 48 4.74 42 1.71 43 0.96 42 0.23 48 46

100–250 num23 100 1 2.5 3 1.42 4 1 4 0.99 1 3

num17 100 2 1.64 2 0.82 2 0.7 2 0.98 2 1
num27 109 3 1.41 1 0.57 1 0.36 1 0.78 3 1
num5 227 7 8.53 8 2.74 8 1 4 0.03 8 8
num8 236 8 7.54 7 2.53 7 1 4 0.04 7 7

200–350 num5 227 1 3.83 3 1.69 3 1 2 0.99 1 2

num8 236 2 2.35 1 1.1 1 0.83 1 0.98 2 1
num21 279 3 2.95 2 1.37 2 1 2 0.78 3 3

300 ≤ WQI num11 381 6 3.91 11 1.6 11 1 12 0.99 5 8

num19 391 8 1.6 1 0.58 1 0.31 1 0.94 8 6
num30 522 11 4.79 12 1.7 13 1 12 0.6 14 13
num16 536 13 3.81 10 1.31 10 0.7 7 0.61 13 11

Some examples of changes in ranks of the wells according to the
classes are also presented by Table 5.
According to Fig. 4(b), in comparison to well number 17,
although the well number 55 has lower amount of WQI (better rank
in WQI method), it gains worse rank in other four MCDMs which
stems from lack of equilibrium between its water quality param-
eters. The amount of NO3 in well number 55 is 0.9 mg/L which is
three times larger than NO3 in well number 17. In WQI method, the
NO3 concentration after deviation to the WHO standards’ value will
decrease to 45 mg/L. Due to its low amount, effectiveness of this
parameter in WQI evaluation will be reduced. However, MCDMs
increased the effectiveness of NO3 because throughout the nor-
malization step, the normalized amount of NO3 in well number 3
became 3.5 times larger than the well number 17. Thus, the results
of MCDMs seem more realistic. Such explanations revealed that
although some wells were placed in the lower ranks based on the
original WQI ranges, they might even be placed in the higher ranks
of the table after the abovementioned modifications and utilizing
the MCDMs. There is no remarkable change in Fig. 4(c) and (d) but
some changes exist in different used methods.
Due to the differences between five methods (WQI, TOPSIS and
CP for p = 1, 2 and ∞) in prioritizing wells in the case study, the
averaging method is used for comparing MCDMs vs. WQI method.
The regression coefficients between averaging method and the five
above-mentioned methods in four classes (excellent water, good
water, poor water and very poor water) are shown via Fig. 5. The
class related to unfit water for drinking purpose is not used in this
part.
According to the results of regression coefficient, in each class of
water quality there were more than two MCDM methods with high
regression coefficient in comparison to WQI method. In addition,
the regression coefficient values of CP method with p = 1 and 2 were
greater than 0.9. Thus capability of these two methods for ranking
wells in this case study should be taken into account. Furthermore,
the regression coefficient in TOPSIS method decreased by raising
the number of wells in each class. TOPSIS in classes of 100–250 and
200–350 has higher regression coefficient than WQI method. CP
method for p = ∞ has the lowest regression coefficient among other
methods. Hence, increase of “p” parameter was not appropriate for
reliable prioritizing of wells’ water quality.
Li et al. (2013a,c) reported efficiency of MCDMs in sensitiv-
ity analysis of criteria weights. The current research showed that
MCDMs are also capable of validating WQI classes and investigating
sensitivity of the MCDMs to number of alternatives. In compar-
ison to similar studies, application of WQI in some studies has
faced different issues. According to the results of Sadat-Noori et al.
(2013), although some wells belongs to different classes, yet the
interpolation results based on the Kriging method put them in a
same category of WQI class. On the other hand, by employment
of MCDMs, there would be no same contradiction or paradoxical
outcome in classification of wells. The results of the present study
are in line with the above-mentioned concepts. Jamshidzadeh and
 S. Zahedi et al. / Ecological Indicators 78 (2017) 243–252
Mirbagheri (2010) just analyzed wells separately with correlation
coefficient between different parameters and concluded that the
separation assessment would not be practical for appraising water
quality in a case study. However, in the current study not only role
of each well was considered in the class of groundwater quality,
but the wells are also ranked based on multiple criteria analysis of
harmful chemical parameters for drinking purpose.
4. Conclusion
The main objective of the current study was to explore a solution
to mitigate probable errors of WQI method in classification of water
quality classes. The most striking features to emerge from the study
are as follows:
(1) In WQI method, some impreciseness may occur like a decrease
in WQI just because of low quantity of a parameter with high
relative weight or less computational effectiveness of a param-
eter with low relative weight but high quantity. Furthermore,
small changes in a parameter may cause an overwhelming shift
in WQI results.
(2) Introducing MCDMs instead of WQI was the achievement of the
proposed research. MCDMs can reanalyze groundwater quality
classes of the case study after modifying boundary values of
WQI classes.
(3) These results indicated that by employment of such MCDMs as
TOPSIS and CP which use different assumptions as similarity to
the ideal solution and compromise solution, some of the wells
could gain higher scores despite existing in the lower quality
class of general WQI range.
(4) The results also demonstrate that TOPSIS and CP yield differ-
ent ranking list for each class. TOPSIS for the classes with low
number of wells performed better in comparison to the classes
with high quantity of wells. Moreover, increases in value of the
sensitivity parameter of CP technique reduced the accuracy of
results.
Owing to proper application of MCDMs, it can be a practical idea
to use and develop MCDM-based water quality assessment models
for future researches.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of
Gordana J. Devic on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Suggestions
from two anonymous reviewers and the respectable Associated
Editor are also greatly appreciated. We also acknowledge Dr. A.M.
Zahedi for his helps in editing English writing of the paper.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found,
in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.
03.015.
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