Abstract
Abstract. The conventional methods used to solve multi-criteria multi-stakeholder problems are less strongly formulated, as they normally incorporate only homogeneous information at a time and suggest aggregating objectives of different decision-makers avoiding water–society interactions. In this contribution, Multi-Criteria Group Decision Analysis (MCGDA) using a fuzzy-stochastic approach has been proposed to rank a set of alternatives in water management decisions incorporating heterogeneous information under uncertainty. The decision making framework takes hydrologically, environmentally, and socio-economically motivated conflicting objectives into consideration. The criteria related to the performance of the physical system are optimized using multi-criteria simulation-based optimization, and fuzzy linguistic quantifiers have been used to evaluate subjective criteria and to assess stakeholders' degree of optimism. The proposed methodology is applied to find effective and robust intervention strategies for the management of a coastal hydrosystem affected by saltwater intrusion due to excessive groundwater extraction for irrigated agriculture and municipal use. Preliminary results show that the MCGDA based on a fuzzy-stochastic approach gives useful support for robust decision-making and is sensitive to the decision makers' degree of optimism.
Highlights
In many real-world water resources management problems, the decision-making process is generally complex and faced with multiple criteria related to the physical environment and socioeconomics to consider
The water resources management decision-making process and its final outcomes are affected by the inputs and perceptions of different parties involved in the process, which leads to a problem of multiple stakeholders or a multi-decision maker problem
Many Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques conventionally used in the literature to solve real-world water resources management problem give unsatisfactory solutions (Raju et al 2000, Xu and Tung 2009) for the following reasons: (i) they normally incorporate only homogeneous information and do not deal with heterogeneous information simultaneously, and (ii) different types of uncertainty of different alternatives are not considered at the same time
Summary
In many real-world water resources management problems, the decision-making process is generally complex and faced with multiple criteria related to the physical environment and socioeconomics to consider. This makes the problem a multi-criteria (or multi-objective) decision problem for which one single solution is not readily available due to the existing trade-offs among conflicting quantitative and qualitative objectives. Many Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques conventionally used in the literature to solve real-world water resources management problem give unsatisfactory solutions (Raju et al 2000, Xu and Tung 2009) for the following reasons: (i) they normally incorporate only homogeneous information (either numerical or linguistic variables) and do not deal with heterogeneous information simultaneously, and (ii) different types of uncertainty (subjective and objective) of different alternatives are not considered at the same time. Applications of these techniques, which consider water–society interactions in real-world water resources management, are rare
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