Assessment of Coastal Locations Safety Using a Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process-Based Model

Abstract

Worldwide tourist beaches have been an ideal destination for people searching for a recreational place to visit; however, several conditions could generate risks for these visitors. At present, the main efforts to assess these risks and prevent people from danger are essentially focused on monitoring tidal height in the zone, ignoring other risk sources. Therefore, this work generates an overall evaluation that considers the tidal height, bathymetry, temperature, solar radiation, and wind speed, establishing a relationship between parameters and safe beach conditions using a fuzzy logic approach. In addition, this paper presents the design and implementation of a computational model, based on a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP), to evaluate coastal and climatological parameters involved in tourist safety, which can be continuously monitored. Tourist beaches in South Baja California, México, with diverse environmental and coastal conditions, were assessed with the proposed model, providing several safety scenarios that contrast the results between sites and demonstrate the capacity of the model to evaluate them. The evaluation, obtained as a result of the computational model, presents information about the safety conditions in the assessed zone, considering the possible risks for all the parameters analyzed, which could be presented to beach visitors to prevent dangerous situations and avoid accidents.