Water and Environmental Resources: A Multi-Criteria Assessment of Management Approaches

Abstract

The present study applied a multi-criteria analysis to evaluate the best approach among six theoretical frameworks related to the integrated management of water–environmental resources, analyzing the frequency of multiple management criteria. The literature review covers the period from 1990 to 2015, with a notable presence of the theoretical frameworks of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), Ecohealth, Ecosystem Approach (EA), Water Framework Directive (WFD), and, to a lesser extent, the Watershed Governance Prism (WGP) and the Sustainability Wheel (SW). The multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods applied include AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process), TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution), and PROMETHEE (Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations). Twenty-five criteria were analyzed, such as governance, participation, sustainability, decentralization, and health and well-being, among others. We started with five criteria for evaluating the hierarchy of the six theoretical frameworks using the AHP method. Subsequently, we again evaluated the five criteria using the TOPSIS and PROMETHEE methods to calibrate the results with the AHP. Then, using word counting, we evaluated the best approach, applying 10, 15, 20, and 25 more criteria. Our results indicate that the best integrated management alternative was the WFD, which fulfilled 47% of the management criteria. Second, with 45%, was the WGP, and third was IWRM, with 41%; less successful approaches to the criteria were demonstrated by the EA, SW, and Ecohealth methods. By applying this methodology, we demonstrated an excellent structured tool that can aid in the selection of the most important issue within a given sector.