title: Water quality of Danube Delta systems: ecological status and prediction using machine-learning algorithms.
abstract: Environmental issues have a worldwide impact on water bodies, including the Danube Delta, the largest European wetland. The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) implementation operates toward solving environmental issues from European and national level. As a consequence, the water quality and the biocenosis structure was altered, especially the composition of the macro invertebrate community which is closely related to habitat and substrate heterogeneity. This study aims to assess the ecological status of Southern Branch of the Danube Delta, Saint Gheorghe, using benthic fauna and a computational method as an alternative for monitoring the water quality in real time. The analysis of spatial and temporal variability of unicriterial and multicriterial indices were used to assess the current status of aquatic systems. In addition, chemical status was characterized. Coliform bacteria and several chemical parameters were used to feed machine-learning (ML) algorithms to simulate a real-time classification method. Overall, the assessment of the water bodies indicated a moderate ecological status based on the biological quality elements or a good ecological status based on chemical and ML algorithms criteria.
authors.affiliation: National Research and Development Institute for Industrial Ecology-ECOIND, 71-73 Drumul Podu Dambovitei, 060652 Bucharest, Romania E-mail: cati.stoica@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stoica
authors.affiliation: Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Camejo
authors.affiliation: National Research and Development Institute for Industrial Ecology-ECOIND, 71-73 Drumul Podu Dambovitei, 060652 Bucharest, Romania E-mail: cati.stoica@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Banciu
authors.affiliation: National Research and Development Institute for Industrial Ecology-ECOIND, 71-73 Drumul Podu Dambovitei, 060652 Bucharest, Romania E-mail: cati.stoica@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nita-Lazar
authors.affiliation: National Research and Development Institute for Industrial Ecology-ECOIND, 71-73 Drumul Podu Dambovitei, 060652 Bucharest, Romania E-mail: cati.stoica@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Paun
authors.affiliation: Department of Systemic Ecology and Sustainability, Faculty of Biology, University of Bucharest, 91-95 Splaiul Independentei, Bucharest, Romania.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cristofor
authors.affiliation: Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA), University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: O R
authors.initials: OR
authors.lastname: Pacheco
authors.affiliation: Computer Graphics Center, University of Minho, Campus de Azurem, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guevara
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D007448:Invertebrates; D045483:Rivers / Q000737:chemistry*; D014867:Water / Q000032:analysis; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000737:chemistry*; D014876:Water Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D060753:Water Quality / Q000592:standards*
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D014867:Water