Application of bipartite networks to the study of water quality

Abstract

Water is a basic natural resource for life and the sustainable development of society. Methods to assess water quality in freshwater ecosystems based on environmental quality bioindicators have proven to be low cost, reliable, and can be adapted to ecosystems with well-defined structures. The objective of this paper is to propose an interdisciplinary approach for the assessment of water quality in freshwater ecosystems through bioindicators. From the presence/absence of bioindicator organisms and their sensitivity/tolerance to environmental stress, we constructed a bipartite network, G. In this direction, we propose a new method that combines two research approaches, Graph Theory and Random Matrix Theory (RMT). Through the topological properties of the graph G, we introduce a topological index, called JP(G), to evaluate the water quality, and we study its properties and relationships with known indices, such as Biological MonitoringWorking Party (BMWP) and Shannon diversity (H0). Furthermore, we perform a scaling analysis of random bipartite networks with already specialized parameters for our case study. We validate our proposal for its application in the reservoir of Guajaro, Colombia. The results obtained allow us to infer that the proposed techniques are useful for the study of water quality, since they detect significant changes in the ecosystem.