A Hybrid Stochastic-Interval Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach for Prioritizing the Strategies of Reusing Treated Wastewater

Liang Jing,Pu Li,Bing Chen,Baiyu Zhang

doi:10.1155/2013/874805

Abstract

This paper proposes a hybrid stochastic-interval analytic hierarchy process (SIAHP) approach to address uncertainty in group decision making by integrating interval judgment, probabilistic distribution, lexicographic goal programming, and Monte Carlo simulation. A case study related to wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent reuse was conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. Four candidate alternatives including city moat landscaping, municipal reuse, industrial reuse, and agricultural irrigation were evaluated by five experts according to technical, economic, and environmental criteria. The results suggest that industrial reuse (0.18–0.3) is more preferred over municipal reuse (0.16–0.25) or agricultural irrigation (0.17–0.26) in most replications. The final score of city moat landscaping ranges from 0.11 to 0.31 which indicates a great divergence of expert opinions. It can be concluded that choosing industrial reuse seems to give the best overall account of technical, economic, and environmental concerns. The proposed SIAHP approach can aid group decision making by accommodating linguistic information and dealing with insufficient information or biased opinions.

Highlights

As a major factor influencing social and economic development, the global water shortage has been exacerbated due to population growth, urbanization, climate change, and industrialization [1,2,3,4]
This paper proposes a hybrid stochastic-interval analytic hierarchy process (SIAHP) approach to address uncertainty in group decision making by integrating interval judgment, probabilistic distribution, lexicographic goal programming, and Monte Carlo simulation
It clearly shows that most density estimates have two major peaks, indicating that the optimization results obtained from the lexicographic goal programming (LGP) method tend to be concentrated within a certain interval possibly due to the randomly generated interval judgments

Summary

Introduction

As a major factor influencing social and economic development, the global water shortage has been exacerbated due to population growth, urbanization, climate change, and industrialization [1,2,3,4]. The reuse of treated wastewater from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has been gaining significant attention as a potential solution to cope up with the increasing water stress. Treated wastewater may still contain significant levels of fecal coliforms and many other pollutants (e.g., heavy metals) that need to be removed prior to reuse. Friedler et al highlighted that improper planning of wastewater reuse may expose people to hazardous pathogenic microorganisms, posing a serious threat to public health [6]. Kon and Watanabe argued that the promotion of reusing treated wastewater can be compromised by many factors such as the need for posttreatment, the concerns associated with water quality and functionality, and the economic efficiency [8]. Former works have shown that the selection of reuse schemes depends on their technical, economic, and environmental feasibility and mainly on public support, in other words, the decision makers who represent the interests of society

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion