Interactive Fuzzy Logic Interface for Enhanced Real-Time Water Quality Index Monitoring

Surface water resources are under growing pressure from urbanization, industrial activity, and agriculture, making effective monitoring essential for safeguarding ecological integrity and human use. Conventional monitoring methods, which rely on manual sampling and rigid Water Quality Index (WQI) categories, often provide delayed feedback and oversimplify conditions near classification thresholds, limiting their usefulness for timely management. To overcome these shortcomings, we have developed an interactive fuzzy logic-based water quality monitoring interface or dashboard that integrates the WQI developed by Malaysia’s Department of Environment with the National Water Quality Standards (NWQS) Class I–V framework. The interface combines conventional WQI computation with advanced visualization tools such as dynamic gauges, parameter tables, fuzzy membership graphs, scatter plots, heatmaps, and bar charts. Then, triangular membership functions map six key parameters to NWQS classes, providing smoother and more nuanced interpretation compared to rigid thresholds. In addition to that, the dashboard enables clearer communication of trends, supports timely decision-making, and demonstrates adaptability for broader applications since it is implemented on the Replit platform. Finally, evaluation results show that the fuzzy interface improves interpretability by resolving ambiguities in over 15% of cases near class boundaries and facilitates faster assessment of pollution trends compared to conventional reporting. Thus, these contributions highlight the necessity and value of the research on advancing Malaysia’s national water quality monitoring and providing a scalable framework for international contexts.