Combining GIS and fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making for water catchment drilling site selection

Abstract

The selection of a potential site for water catchment drilling implantation is a difficult, complex and time-consuming decision-making process, requiring evaluation of many heterogeneous criteria. This paper presents a fuzzy multi-criteria decision analysis for the development of a combined spatial decision support system (CSDSS) allowing the selection of potential water catchment drilling sites in the plateau of Mostaganem in the north-west of Algeria. For this purpose, our approach includes two steps: in the first step, we use thematic maps and a set of criteria (geological, hydrological, topographical, environmental, etc.) in geographic information system (GIS) to select the potential water drilling sites. In this step, 14 sites are selected. The evaluation of the experts of each potential site, versus to the various criteria, is imprecise during this first step. Their modelling by linguistic variables and fuzzy numbers is necessary. So that, a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (FMCDM) method is applied in the second step for ranking the potential water catchment drilling sites. Based on an initial GIS screening and final FMCDM assessment, site14, site8 and site13 are selected as the top three sites. Research results show that the combination between GIS and FMCDM allows to define a powerful CSDSS. A robustness analysis, using a Monte Carlo simulation, was performed to estimate the consistency of the potential site ranking. The results show that site14 is still the most suitable for water drilling with a 100% of reliability.