| Application domain: | Analysis of Water Quality Data |
| Further specification: | 1108 biological and 2580 chemical samples |
| Pointers: | Contact Saso Dzeroski Saso.Dzeoroski@ijs.si |
| Data complexity: | approx. 1MB |
| Data format: | Prolog |
The data about Slovenian rivers come from the Hydrometeorological Institute of Slovenia (member of the End-user-club), which performs water quality monitoring for most Slovenian rivers and maintains a database of water quality samples. The data provided cover a six year period, from 1990 to 1995. Biological samples are taken approximately twice a year, once in summer and once in winter, while physical and chemical analyzes are performed several times a year for each sampling site. The physical and chemical samples include the measured values of the following parameters: water flow, water temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, O2 (dissolved oxygen), saturation of O2, CO2, total hardness, NO2, NO3, NH4, PO4, Cl, SiO2, chemical oxygen demand or COD (KMnO4 and K2Cr2O7) and biochemical oxygen demand or BOD (BPK5). Each biological sample includes a list of all taxa present at the sampling site and their density. The frequency of occurrence (density) of each present taxon is recorded by an expert biologist at three different qualitative levels, where 1 means the taxon occurs incidentally, 3-frequently, and 5-abundantly. Biological samples also include the corresponding Saprobic Index value and the corresponding quality class as determined by the index.
Taxonomic information for all taxa that appear in the samples is available. For bioindicator taxa, their saprobic zone preferences and weighting factors are also available. Information on the topology of measurement sites is available (which measurements sites are (immediately) upstream or downstream of a given site). Temporal information can also be used (dates and times for all measurements). This makes it possible to refer to samples that are spatially or temporally adjacent to a given sample. Finally, information on the life cycles of some taxa is available (but not yet in computer format as opposed to the other information).