Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process Research Articles

Determining Potential Groundwater Recharge Zones in the North Gujarat Region of Gujarat State Using Techniques of Geoinformatics and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

The rapid increase in population and industrialization has significantly raised the consumption of groundwater resources for domestic, agricultural, and industrial purposes. This study aims to develop groundwater recharge potential zone maps to assist in the construction of artificial recharge structures in the North Gujarat Region of Gujarat, India. An integrated approach of remote sensing (RS), geographical information system (GIS), and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) were used to achieve this goal. Influencing factors of groundwater availability included geology, soil, lineament density, slope, rainfall, land use/land cover, geomorphology, and drainage density, were analyzed to delineate potential groundwater recharge zones. each influencing parameter was determined by using Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, and sub-parameters were ranked according to the AHP scale. A weighted overlay analysis tool in ArcGIS software was employed to map the groundwater recharge potential zones in the North Gujarat region. The classified results of the recharge potential area in the study area consist of excellent (9.93%), good (27.90%), moderate (17.58%), poor (3.92%), and very poor (0.92%) These findings provide valuable insights for effectively planning and managing groundwater resource development in the region.

Calculation of the weight coefficients of the criteria of the spatial factor and their interrelations with the investment objectives of the purchase of land plots

The article presents the results of the distribution of criteria according to investment objectives, which can serve as the basis for developing a mathematical model for assessing the investment attractiveness of land plots. Existing methods for assessing investment attractiveness were analyzed and a new assessment system was compiled. The criteria were ordered by calculating the weights using the T. Saaty Analytic Hierarchy Process, and the interrelations between the criteria and investment objectives were visualized using a graph. The classification and graph given in the study are able not only to determine the relationship between investment objectives and criteria, but also subsequently to form approaches to assessing the quality of the proposed classification.

A multi-criteria approach of assessing groundwater potential, recharge and flow in the transboundary Tuli Karoo Basin

Abstract Quantitative estimates of amount of groundwater resources are required in the transboundary Tuli Karoo Basin to better manage and promote sustainable conjunctive use of the aquifer. Unfortunately, such important data and information are lacking. The aim of this study was to map groundwater potential zones and model groundwater recharge as well as groundwater flow in the Tuli Karoo Basin (12,164 km2) using geospatial techniques. To delineate groundwater potential zones, nine thematic maps of groundwater conditioning factors were computed and weighted using Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). To validate the groundwater potential map, a Kruskal–Wallis test was performed. Groundwater recharge and groundwater flow direction were estimated in a coupled Geographic Information System (GIS) and modelling environment using the soil–water–balance model (SWB) and British Geological Survey (BGS) groundwater tool, respectively. Results for groundwater potential mapping showed that the area is dominated by high ground water potential which covers about 57.8% (6,915.1 km2) of the basin. The Kruskal–Wallis test showed that the median values of the borehole yields vary significantly between the different groundwater potential zone classes (P-value <0.0001). Estimated groundwater recharge using SWB model showed that the maximum annual potential recharge for the Tuli Karoo Basin was 13.2 mm/year for the 10-year period from 2010 to 2020. Results from the BGS tool for groundwater flow show that the dominant groundwater flow direction is southeast. The results showed that there is no link between groundwater flow direction and surface water flow direction. This study is relevant in water development policy, water-related development aid, community planning and technical decision making for hydrogeologists, catchment managers, water planners and non-specialists alike.

Measuring inter-neighborhood disparities by tribal origin and academic achievement: Case of Bousaâda, Algeria

The phenomenon of inter-neighbourhood disparities is taking on worrying proportions in the city of Boussa?da. The quantitative study of disparities provides us with alarming figures on the social and spatial dimensions. Our research has shown a negative correlation between the indices of residential segregation and school success rates, specifically with a strong residential segregation through the overcrowded peripheral neighbourhoods, and a low level of school facilities. The study of inter-neighbourhood disparities in the city of Boussa?da, affirmed a strong residential segregation with 0.780 as the value of the segregation index and ghettos evaluated at 6 on the scale of Poulssen. The other result at the level of school facilities with indices of zonal aptitude varying between 0.41 and 1.02 on the neighbourhoods of ?Maitar and Sidi Slimane? on a scale of 0 to 5. These figures are alarming for local authorities and require a search for social diversity and a re-evaluation of the methods of decision making for the allocation of school facilities based on socio-economic data and a level of facilities comparable to a national average. Its objectives are the result of combining social and spatial indicators in a square matrix by Saaty's AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method. It is in this complex urban context that geographic information systems (GIS) can be used as a decision support tool, with a dashboard that displays in real time the situation of the different districts of the city, by means of disparity indices.

Methodology of Research on the Demand for Development of Transport Infrastructure and Rolling Stock for Perishable Goods Transportation

In the context of globalisation of economic relationships, intensification of transportation and technological solutions, the methodology of research and development of transport infrastructure requires improvement and adaptation to dynamically changing conditions of the transportation market.The objective of the work is to formalise and to develop a methodology for studying transport infrastructure, including specialised isothermal rolling stock. The initial data on cargo turnover were processed by the methods of mathematical statistics, and the technical parameters of innovative isothermal rolling stock were substantiated using the methods of T. Saaty analytic hierarchy process, expert assessment, and update engineering design process.The article provides an analysis of the cargo turnover of perishable goods transported by railway refrigerated transport in Russia in terms of volumes, types of rolling stock, and origin. The main origin-destination cargo flows are presented by types of transportation (domestic, transit, export, import transport operations). It has been determined that key factors in development of isothermal rolling stock for transportation of perishable goods in the transport system of the country refer to transportation of meat, fish, beer, soft drinks, juices in the segment of domestic transportation. The analysis shows that there are no structural and quantitative shifts in terms of types of transportation and types of cargo.The strategy for development of vehicles for transportation of perishable goods and the methodology are presented in a block diagram, in sections: «statement of the research problem», «decision-making stages», «decision implementation methods and algorithms». It is shown that the problem includes not only development of stationary railway infrastructure and of stages in development of isothermal rolling stock, but also the need to solve organisational, technical, technological, regulatory, and legal problems, as well as tariff regulation.The issues of methodology for designing an innovative isothermal rolling stock are considered referring to possible prospects for its development and areas of operation, as well as to a set of engineering and technological solutions. The study of linear dimensions and useful section of the loading space of various types of isothermal bodies shows the advantage of wagons and swap bodies in comparison with large-capacity refrigerated containers.It is proposed to design a prototype of innovative isothermal rolling stock on the basis of a universal isothermal swap body, configured with various types of refrigerating equipment with specified technical parameters that best meet the requirements of the modern transportation market. The areas of possible use of various types of isothermal rolling stock are analysed considering long-term forecasts for development of agricultural, fishing and processing industries.

Spatial transferability of expert opinion models for American beaver habitat

Species distribution models and habitat suitability models (HSMs) have become a popular tool in the conservation of biodiversity. However, the ability to predict species spatial distributions at sites beyond the data source sites (i.e., spatial transferability) is critical for the applications of HSMs in the management and conservation of rare or endangered species. The main objective of our study was to assess the predictive performance and spatial transferability of expert opinion models (EOMs). To build EOMs, we identified through extensive literature reviews 17 key landscape variables to characterize habitat use by American beaver (Castor canadensis). We developed 31 pairwise opinion questions on the relative importance of the 17 selected habitat variables for an online survey in Qualtrics®. We used Saaty's analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and geospatial analysis to build EOMs for beaver. We tested the transferability of EOMs by assessing model predictive performance using the area under the curve (AUC > 0.7) in northcentral Mississippi and northern Alabama, USA. Thirty-five of 63 survey participants submitted complete, consistent surveys. Expert opinion models had fair predictive performance for beaver at the two study sites (AUC = 0.70–0.76). The fair predictive performance of EOM for the two sites, from which no opinion survey data were collected, indicated acceptable spatial transferability. The American beaver exhibits stable realized niche space throughout its geographic range, restricting habitat selection to open water bodies and associated wetlands, which may subsequently result in high transferability of HSMs.

An integrated GIS approach to analyze the impact of land use change and land cover alteration on ground water potential level: A study in Kangsabati Basin, India

Land use/land cover change continuously occurs at locally, regionally and globally over the last few decades for excessive demand of mankind. This change creates adverse effects on groundwater potential level (GWPL) due to interruption of recharge process; hence, this study has attempt to assess the impact of land use change and land cover alteration (LUCLCA) on GWPL, furthermore to find out such effective land alteration processes in Kangsabati basin, India. Hydrological parameters were taken for delineation of groundwater potential zones (GWPZs) using Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) whereas Pearson correlation matrix (PCM) was used to determine the effective LUCLCA processes on GWPL change. Results revealed that high GWPZ decreases from 1828 km2 to 1333 km2, but low GWPZ increases from 117 km2 to 622 km2 during 2002 and 2016. In order of GWPL change, PCM demonstrated that negative land alteration processes (NLAP) are present in laterite outcrop, fallow land, settlement, and cropland, whereas positive alteration processes (PLAP) are present in dense forest, degraded forest, and wetland. With this validation, twenty-five sites were selected, nine sites have negative GWPL change for NLAP; four sites have positive GWPL change for PLAP, but GWPL change does not found in five sites for the same and low land alteration. In rest sites, model validation does not agree with GWPL change, however, other hydrological parameters are more dominated in this change. Therefore, LUCLCA does not only control the GWPL, but other thematic parameters are signified the potential level. Moreover, this study also helps the planner to predict sustainable land use management for groundwater conservation.

Groundwater potential zone identification at Plio-Pleistocene elevated tract, Bangladesh: AHP-GIS and remote sensing approach

Water is pondered as a strategic resource that has a great ascendancy on human life and socio-economic development. The present study has toted to understand the groundwater potential (GP) zone at the drought-prone Plio-Pleistocene elevated tract in Bangladesh using geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) technique. Ten thematic layers have been escorted for the current study that is extracted from different secondary sources. Thematic layers have been co-registered and rectified to the UTM 45 projection and world geodetic system (WGS) 1984 datum. All thematic layers have been assimilated using weighted linear combination (WLC) and GIS-based multi-criteria evaluation for class normalization using Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Different classes of each layer are prepared for the determination of weight and ranking to generate the pairwise comparison matrix (PWCM). Thematic layers viz. drainage density (DD), slope (SLO), geomorphology (GM), soil thickness (ST), groundwater table depth (GWTD) have a negative influence, besides lineament density (LD), rainfall (RF), infiltration rate (IR) have a positive influence with increasing class range values for GP. Surface lithology (SL) and land use/land cover (LULC) are reliant on porosity and presence of water bodies for percolation into the aquifer. Map removal sensitivity analysis (MRSA) and the single parameter sensitivity analysis (SPSA) are also carried for assessing the effect after removing a thematic layer and the effective weight of thematic layers on the GP map, respectively. GP map has been classified into five zones i.e. very low (26% area or 511 km2); low (56% area or 1075 km2); moderate (15% area or 282 km2); high (2% area or 38 km2); and very high (1% area or 25 km2). MRSA results show that groundwater table depth is more sensitive with a mean variation index of 8.9%, besides SPSA results show that the effective thematic layer is slope (weight 29.7%).

Comparison of AHP-TOPSIS and AHP-AHP methods in multi-criteria decision-making problems

Decision-making is a highly researched topic and various methods have been developed to facilitate a decision-maker (DM) in choosing the best alternative. Saaty's analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been very popular since 1977 and has been adapted all over the world. However, AHP is a highly-debated topic. Technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is another multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method developed by Hwang and Yoon in 1981 as a ranking method. This research is focused on identifying which is the MCDM method between AHP and TOPSIS. Since TOPSIS is a ranking method, the authors propose to combine AHP and TOPSIS methods and determine which method's ranking (AHP, AHP-TOPSIS combination, and TOPSIS with equal weights) aligns more closely with the DM's initial preference. Moreover, this research states the efficiency of the method by comparing the time it takes to make a decision and its reliability.

Multi-criteria evaluation of suitable sites for termite mounds construction in a tropical lowland

Termite mounds influence ecosystem heterogeneity and contribute to the stabilization of the system under global change. A number of environmental factors influence the distribution, height, diameter and designs of termite mounds but these factors are not only poorly understood, they cannot be extrapolated for everywhere. In this study, we employed a ground based survey and Geographical Information System (GIS) technique to map 156 km2 study area in Keffi, Nigeria. The aims were to (1) estimate the density and area covered by termite mounds, (2) sample and identify species types and how they are distributed, and (3) use five environmental factors (elevation, geology, surface water drainage, land use/land cover and static water level) to model suitable sites for mounds construction. A total of 361 mounds were mapped representing a density of about 0.8 mounds ha−1 and covering only about 0.31% of the studied area. Next, the effect of the five chosen environmental factors on the geographic distribution, life status, height and diameter of mounds and species diversity were analysed and their relationships plotted in pairwise comparison matrices using the Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process. Normalized rates for classes in each factor and corresponding weights were computed and aggregated using the Weighted Linear Combination method. The result depicted that moderate to low elevation (270–330 m amsl), rock cover types that are more susceptible to weathering (schist), cultivated areas and shallow water table zones are most favourable for termites to build mounds. The result obtained in this study shows a promising correlation between the environmental factors and termite mounds distribution. The proposed model can easily be replicated in a different but similar multi-land use and rock cover types.

Development of indices for surface and ground water quality assessment and characterization for Indian conditions

Water quality indices are mathematical equations that transform water quality data into a particular number which describe the status of water. A number of water quality indices have been developed by various researchers for categorizing the water quality for different uses. These indices are developed based on classification criteria, sub-indices, and aggregation function. In the present study, a generalized Composite Water Quality Index (CWQI) is developed to classify the water into five categories, viz excellent, good, fair, poor, and polluted. For this purpose, the concentration ranges have been categorized on the basis of the Indian Standards (IS) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) standards and considering International standards of World Health Organization (WHO) and European Commission (EC). Twenty-five water quality parameters are selected based on the social and environmental impacts, and weights are computed using the Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tool. These parameters are selected such that the same indices can be used to assess the quality of both surface and ground water. The computed weights minimize the subjectivity in assigning the parameter weights. The proposed index improves understanding of water quality issues by integrating complex data and generates a score which describes the status of water quality. The index will be very useful for the water management authorities to maintain good health of surface water resources.

The Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process revisited: A revised method with application to sustainable supplier selection

Civil society increasingly holds focal companies accountable for ensuring socially and environmentally sustainable production standards among their supply base. These standards entail increased levels of complexity to be addressed by appropriately designed tools, such as the Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process (VAHP) proposed by Liu and Hai (2005). This method of multi-criteria group decision making structures decision criteria in a hierarchical fashion as per Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) for deriving criteria weights from the ordinal preferences of the group members. Compared to AHP, the method permits a simpler application in a group decision context. However, its theoretical underpinnings have been questioned in the literature. This specifically concerns (i) the requirement of a strong convex order for the importance weights of ordinal rank gradations, and (ii) the choice of discrimination threshold for consecutive rank weights in the underlying DEA model. We propose a revised VAHP method that overcomes both issues (i) and (ii) by pursuing a game-theoretic approach to elicitation of criteria weights — so as to remove subjectivity from rank discrimination. We illustrate the application of the method on a real-world problem of sustainable supplier selection. We contribute to theory by proposing a more robust VAHP tool that helps supply chain and purchasing managers selecting suppliers based on a comprehensive set of criteria spanning all three sustainability dimensions (economic, environmental, and social), while coping with parsimonious input by group decision-makers.

The features of Saaty analytic hierarchy process application for the choice of modernization strategy of energy objects

The article is devoted to identifying the features of application the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) when choosing the modernization strategies to thermal power plant (TPP) subsystems and convert TPP into an energy technological complex (ETC). Criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of alternative energy projects are presented. It is shown that the use of optimization methods makes it possible to reduce the influence of the subjectivity of the decision maker (DM) at the upper levels of the hierarchy. The method of parallel hierarchies is proposed, which allows in one model to take into account the influence of non-subordinate tasks and problems of energy production.

Index-based assessment of suitability of water quality for irrigation purpose under Indian conditions.

Agriculture is a major sector in India which contributes around 14% of country's gross domestic product (GDP). Being an agriculture-based country, good quality of water for irrigation has been a prime requisite. Highly growing population and accelerated industrial development are causing anthropogenic pollution to both surface and groundwater on one side and geogenic contamination like arsenic, fluoride, high dissolved solids, sodicity, and iron in groundwater on other side. As a result, ensuring safe water quality for the irrigation has become a major challenge to both the central and state governments. The present irrigation water quality standards being followed in India have been set by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) in the year 2000. These standards are solely based on four parameters, namely electrical conductivity, sodium percentage, sodium absorption ratio, and residual sodium carbonate, which are quite subjective and many times are not capable to exactly decide the quality of irrigation water particularly when there are large variations in the source water quality. Therefore, in the present paper, an indices-based approach is presented for categorization of irrigation water quality. These indices are mathematical equations that transform water quality data into a numeric value, which describes the quality of irrigation water. The proposed irrigation water quality index (IWQI), which is based on 12 parameters, classifies the water into five categories, viz. excellent, good, medium, bad, and very bad in the same manner as given by the CPCB and CGWB. In order to give proper rating to various parameters of the index, weights are computed using Saaty's analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-based multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach. This approach minimizes the subjectivity in assessment of weights and improves understanding of water quality issues by generating an overall index to describe the status of water quality. The proposed index will be beneficial for the water management authorities in ensuring safe water to the stakeholders.

Ranking of Storm Water Harvesting Sites Using Heuristic and Non-Heuristic Weighing Approaches

Conservation of water is essential as climate change coupled with land use changes influence the distribution of water availability. Stormwater harvesting (SWH) is a widely used conservation measure, which reduces pressure on fresh water resources. However, determining the availability of stormwater and identifying the suitable sites for SWH require consideration of various socio-economic and technical factors. Earlier studies use demand, ratio of runoff to demand and weighted demand distance, as the screening criteria. In this study, a Geographic Information System (GIS) based screening methodology is adopted for identifying potential suitable SWH sites in urban areas as a first pass, and then a detailed study is done by applying suitability criteria. Initially, potential hotspots are identified by a concept of accumulated catchments and later the sites are screened and ranked using various screening parameters namely demand, ratio of runoff to demand and weighted demand distance. During this process, the opinion of experts for finalizing the suitable SWH sites brings subjectivity in the methodology. To obviate this, heuristic (Saaty Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)) and non-heuristic approaches (Entropy weight, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) weighing techniques) are adapted for allotting weights to the parameters and applied in the ranking of SWH sites in Melbourne, Australia and Dehradun, India. It is observed that heuristic approach is not effective for the study area as it was affected by the subjectivity in the expert opinion. Results obtained by non-heuristic approach come out to be in a good agreement with the sites finalized for SWH by the water planners of the study area. Hence, the proposed ranking methodology has the potential for application in decision making of suitable storm water harvesting sites.

Modeling the risk of transmission of schistosomiasis in Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria using satellite derived environmental data.

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease and its distribution, in space and time, can be influenced by environmental factors such as rivers, elevation, slope, land surface temperature, land use/cover and rainfall. The aim of this study is to identify the areas with suitable conditions for schistosomiasis transmission on the basis of physical and environmental factors derived from satellite imagery and spatial analysis for Akure North Local Government Area (LGA) of Ondo State. Nigeria. This was done through methodology multicriteria evaluation (MCE) using Saaty’s analytical hierarchy process (AHP). AHP is a multi-criteria decision method that uses hierarchical structures to represent a problem and makes decisions based on priority scales. In this research AHP was used to obtain the mapping weight or importance of each individual schistosomiasis risk factor. For the purpose of identifying areas of schistosomiasis risk, this study focused on temperature, drainage, elevation, rainfall, slope and land use/land cover as the factors controlling schistosomiasis incidence in the study area. It is by reclassifying and overlaying these factors that areas vulnerable to schistosomiasis were identified. The weighted overlay analysis was done after each factor was given the appropriate weight derived through the analytical hierarchical process. The prevalence of urinary schistosomiasis in the study area was also determined by parasitological analysis of urine samples collected through random sampling. The results showed varying risk of schistosomiasis with a larger portion of the area (82%) falling under the high and very high risk category. The study also showed that one community (Oba Ile) had the lowest risk of schistosomiasis while the risk increased in the four remaining communities (Iju, Igoba, Ita Ogbolu and Ogbese). The predictions made by the model correlated strongly with observations from field study. The high risk zones corresponded to known endemic communities. This study revealed that environmental factors can be used in identifying and predicting the transmission of schistosomiasis as well as effective monitoring of disease risk in newly established rural and agricultural communities.

-Discounting Method for Multi-Criteria Decision Making

In this paper we introduce a new procedure called α-Discounting Method for Multi-Criteria Decision Making (α-D MCDM), which is as an alternative and extension of Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). It works for any set of preferences that can be transformed into a system of homogeneous linear equations. A degree of consistency (and implicitly a degree of inconsistency) of a decision-making problem are defined. α-D MCDM is generalized to a set of preferences that can be transformed into a system of linear and/or non-linear homogeneous and/or non-homogeneous equations and/or inequalities. Many consistent, weak inconsistent, and strong inconsistent examples are given.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF AHP, ELECTRE III & ELECTRE IV BY EQUAL OBJECTIVE & SHANNON’S ENTROPY OBJECTIVE & SAATY’S SUBJECTIVE CRITERIA WEIGHTING IN A PRIVATE SMALL HYDROPOWER PLANTS INVESTMENTS SELECTION PROBLEM

<p>Private small hydropower plant investments are more challenging than medium and large private hydropower plant investments when considering engineering analysis. One of the necessary tasks is the selection of the most appropriate private small hydropower investment amongst several alternatives. Brokerage, consultancy and private investor activities are a few examples of these kinds of real world activities. There are many multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) or multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods, and different researchers prefer different methods This research study investigates three methods at once for the same problem: Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Elimination and Choice Translating Reality (ELECTRE) III and ELECTRE IV. A comparative investigation is conducted on one simple unique selection model for all three methods. This unified model has seven objective factors (catchment area, project runoff, net head, flow rate, firm energy, secondary energy, investment cost). An additional comparison is also made on the criteria weighting amongst equal objective, Shannon’s Entropy objective and Saaty’s subjective criteria weighting. The simplistic unified model is structured in three levels. There are seven alternatives in the pre-development investment stage. The Super Decisions software and the ELECTRE III-IV software are implemented in this study. The pairwise comparisons of factors results in an inconsistency value of 0,09511 which is 7<sup>th</sup> in the Saaty's AHP weighting. The Shannon’s Entropy objective weighting represents a difference in the rate of the expert decision maker’s evaluations ranging between -67% and 671%. The equal weighting represents a rate change between -64% and 626%. Both approaches can't represent human judgments (here only one expert decision maker) well in this model. Fortunately, the same alternative (Alternative 3) ranks first. These findings promise that further studies on this subject can give some clues for the development of an autonomous computer based intelligent decision support system. Some observed pros and cons of these methods are also presented in this study. The observations and critical issues are presented during modeling, application, evaluation and analysis to help researchers, consultants, and readers in the small hydropower investments research and practical fields. </p>

A Note on the Paper “Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process: Fallacy of the Popular Methods”

In the last 30 years, several distinguished researchers have proposed and discussed different fuzzy versions of well-known Saaty's Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The paper recently published by K. Zhü in the European Journal of Operational Research heavily criticizes the fuzzy approaches to AHP, claiming the fallacy of all of them. Therefore, it seems to be necessary to clarify whether the criticisms are well-founded or not. The present paper aims to rebut Zhü's claims by showing that the evidences and the reasonings in his paper are very poor and far from proving the fallacy of fuzzy AHP.

English

Based on the analysis of the problems of agriculture of Ukraine the author highlighted categories of problems of agriculture in Ukraine and with the help of the Thomas L. Saaty analytic hierarchy process and identified their rating. The next stage of the rating definitions and problems is the pairwise comparisons of each problem category. The first place in the category value is “economic”, the second – “infrastructure”, the third – “social”, and the fourth – “production”, in the last fifth place – “environmental” problems. According to the analysis in each category is provided a list of the main problems of agriculture in Ukraine: small-scale production, insufficient condition of fruit and vegetable warehouses, weakness of non-productive cooperatives, rising unemployment, opacity of land relations, inconsistency with international standards of quality and safety, low investment adaptation of Ukrainian legal acts to EU requirements, unsatisfactory condition of engineering and transport infrastructure of rural settlements, lack of technical support for producers of agricultural machinery and low-sales service, non-compliance with agricultural storage technologies, running state of social infrastructure and other.