Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation of maritime boundary delimitation schemes based on AHP-entropy weight method

Abstract

There are 11 provinces along the coastal regions in the Chinese Mainland and the scientific division of marine management boundaries among different provinces within the extents of the territorial sea is of important significance in promoting the sustainable development of the marine economy in China. A fuzzy evaluation index system that includes 14 indices of three subsets was established based on a case study of maritime boundary delimitation between Jiangsu and Shandong Provinces to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of maritime boundary delimitation and determine the optimal scheme and offset shortages in the current evaluation index system and evaluation methods. Combined weights of indices were calculated through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and entropy weight method. The comprehensive evaluation indices were used to evaluate three maritime boundary delimitation schemes, namely, historical boundary delimitation scheme, angle bisector delimitation scheme, and equidistance delimitation scheme. Results show that the equidistance delimitation scheme is relatively superior to the two other schemes. The evaluation index is 0.504761 and the evaluation grade is “good”. The angle bisector delimitation scheme is the second optimal. The evaluation index is 0.361641 and the grade is “moderate”. The historical boundary delimitation scheme is the poorest. The evaluation index is 0.135345 and the grade is “poor”. In the late optimization of maritime boundary delimitation schemes, more consideration should be given to people’s livelihood and protection of national maritime rights and interests. The fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method based on AHP-entropy weight can not only provide a quantitative top-down sequence of schemes in terms of quality and solve estimation problems in maritime boundary delimitation scheme, but also assist decision-makers to select the best scheme. Therefore, it possesses great application values.