Battling Arrow’s Paradox to Discover Robust Water Management Alternatives

Abstract

AbstractThis study demonstrates how Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, a theory of social choice, is of direct concern when formulating water-resources systems planning problems. Traditional strategies for solving multiobjective water resources problems typically aggregate multiple performance measures into single composite objectives (e.g., a priori preference weighting or grouping-like measures by category). Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, commonly referred to as Arrow’s Paradox, implies that a subset of performance concerns will inadvertently dictate the properties of the optimized design alternative in unpredictable ways when using aggregated objectives. This study shows how many-objective planning can aid in battling Arrow’s Paradox. Many-objective planning explicitly disaggregates measures of performance while supporting the discovery of planning tradeoffs, using tools such as multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). An urban water portfolio planning case study for the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Tex...