Abstract
The water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) shows remarkable fuzziness and randomness, which causes the uncertainty and instability of the WRCC assessment (WRCCA). In order to solve these problems, we proposed a novel hybrid approach for WRCCA, in which the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methods were integrated with the cloud model (CM). Firstly, an evaluation indicator system of WRCC was constructed. Secondly, the AHP and FCE methods were subsequently improved with the CM. The CM was used to scale the relative importance and aggregate the judgment matrices, where the weights of the clouds were obtained. These integrations of AHP and CM greatly reduced the randomness in the weight calculation; the CM was used to describe the comment sets, calculate the membership degree matrices and determine the assignment clouds, the evaluation sets and the WRCCA index clouds were obtained. These integrations of FCE and CM effectively blurred the boundary fuzziness and gave more intuitive results. Finally, the hybrid FCE-AHP-CM approach was applied to a case study. It was concluded that the novel approach has particular advantages in dealing with the fuzziness and randomness comprehensively, and therefore could assess the WRCC and enhance the robustness and intuition of WRCCA results.
Highlights
Water resources play crucial roles in human civilization, social and economic development, ecological environment, and so on
It was concluded that the novel approach has particular advantages in dealing with the fuzziness and randomness comprehensively, and could assess the WRCC and enhance the robustness and intuition of Keywords: water resources carrying capacity; evaluation indicator system; fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE); analytical hierarchy process (AHP); cloud model (CM); hybrid approach; fuzziness and randomness
The results showed that the hydrology subsystem has the largest weights and the most significant effects on the WRCC, followed by the water resource utilization and the water ecological environment subsystems, and the economic and social subsystem has the smallest weights and negative effects on the WRCC
Summary
Water resources play crucial roles in human civilization, social and economic development, ecological environment, and so on. Water resources carrying capacity assessment (WRCCA) is always a very important research topic in the fields of hydrology, water resources management and socio-economic sustainable development [1]. WRCC is the specific application of the carrying capacity concept in the field of water resources. In 1921, Park et al initially introduced the concept of carrying capacity into human ecology [2], and in. 1985, the definition of resources carrying capacity was proposed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [3]. Since the concept of sustainable development was put forward, Water 2020, 12, 3241; doi:10.3390/w12113241 www.mdpi.com/journal/water
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