The spatial MCDA approach for evaluating flood damage reduction alternatives

Abstract

The conventional MCDA method helps in evaluating and ranking alternatives based upon criteria values associated with each of the alternatives, and upon the preferences of the various decision makers. However, analyses using conventional Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) techniques are often limited by the ability to capture the spatial variability of a region, which affects the decision-making information for floodplain management throughout the basin. The use of Geographic Information System (GIS) can give technical specialists and ultimate decision makers the possibility to represent in a spatially distributed fashion of the information needed in the decision making process. This study is focused on addressing questions pertaining to the methodology of floodplain analysis using GIS and spatial MCDA to evaluate flood damage reduction alternatives. These issues and the approaches used to address them have been outlined in the following points. This study presents a combined GIS with spatial MCDA. Thus, combining GIS and MCDA gives decision makers the capability with spatial analysis not to just use a single strategy for an entire geographical region but to determine if different strategies might have an advantage for the different spatial characteristics at different points in the floodplain. The issues will be examined in a case study of the Suyoung River Basin in Pusan, Korea.