A Compromise Ratio Method with an Application to Water Resources Management: An Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set

Water resources management can be regarded as an iterative process of general decision making considering the applications and modifications of waters and related lands within a geographic region. This process helps decision makers to balance their diverse requirements and applications of water as an environmental resource, and to recognize how their activities can have impacts on the long-term sustainability. This paper introduces a new compromise ratio method based on Atanassov’s intuitionistic fuzzy sets under multiple criteria in real-life situations. Atanassov’s intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging (AIFWA) operator is applied to aggregate individual judgments of the decision makers to rate the relative importance of the selected criteria and potential alternatives. Then a new Atanassov’s intuitionistic fuzzy ranking index is proposed to analyze the potential alternatives. Finally, the performance of the proposed fuzzy decision-making method is illustrated to a real water resources management problem from the recent literature. Computational results demonstrate that the presented method can be utilized in a large-scale multi-level assessment process to assist the decision makers the optimal solution among the potential alternatives with multiple conflicting and compromising criteria.     

Voting Under Uncertainty: A Stochastic Framework for Analyzing Group Decision Making Problems

Water resources policy making often involves consideration of a broader scope of environmental, economic, and social issues. This inevitably complicates policy making since consensus among multiple stakeholders with different interests is needed to implement decisions. This work employs several practical and popular voting methods to solve a multi-stakeholder hydro-environmental management problem. Conventionally, voting methods or social choice rules have been applied for consensus development in small groups and elections. This work combines voting methods with a Monte-Carlo selection, in order to help with social choice making under uncertainty. This process is intended to aid decision-makers with understanding of the risks associated with potential decision alternatives. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s water export conflict is solved here as a benchmark problem to illustrate the proposed framework for social decision making and analysis under uncertainty.     

Interval-parameter Two-stage Stochastic Semi-infinite Programming: Application to Water Resources Management under Uncertainty

In this study, an interval-parameter two-stage stochastic semi-infinite programming (ITSSP) method was developed for water resources management under uncertainty. As a new extension of mathematical programming methods, the developed ITSSP approach has advantages in uncertainty reflection and policy analysis. In order to better account for uncertainties, the ITSSP approach is expressed with discrete intervals, functional intervals and probability density functions. The ITSSP method integrates the two-stage stochastic programming (TSP), interval programming (IP) and semi-infinite programming (SIP) within a general optimization framework. The ITSSP has an infinite number of constraints because it uses functional intervals with time (t) being an independent variable. The different t values within the range [0, 90] lead to different constraints. At same time, ITSSP also includes probability distribution information. The ITSSP method can incorporate pre-defined water resource management policies directly into its optimization process to analyze various policy scenarios having different economic penalties when the promised amounts are not delivered. The model is applied to a water resource management system with three users and four periods (corresponding to winter, spring, summer and fall, respectively). Solutions of the ITSSP model provide desired water allocation patterns, which maximize both the system’s benefits and feasibility. The results indicate that reasonable interval solutions were generated for objective function values and decision variables, thus a number of decision alternatives can be generated under different levels of stream flow. The obtained solutions are useful for decision makers to obtain insight regarding the tradeoffs between environmental, economic and system reliability criteria.     

Interactive Actor Analysis for Rural Water Management in The Netherlands: An Application of the Transactional Approach

Recent developments in the policy sciences emphasize the social environment in which decisions are made. The ‘network metaphor’ is often used to describe the key role of interactions between interdependent actors involved in decision making. These interactions take place in a policy arena drawn up by actors with an interest in and control over decisions on the issues addressed. Interdependencies, caused by the need for actors to increase their means of realizing objectives, are the driving force behind these interactions. Dependency relations are of special interest to water management and river basin management because of the fundamental asymmetrical interdependencies that exist in river basins between upstream and downstream stakeholders. Coleman’s linear system of action models decision making process involving dependencies between multiple stakeholders as exchange of control over issues, while interactions are required to negotiate exchanges of control. We developed an interactive method for actor analysis based on Coleman’s linear system of action and applied it to the national rural water management policy domain in The Netherlands. The method is firmly rooted in mathematical sociology and defies the criticism that methods for actor and stakeholder analysis do not specify a theoretical basis explaining the causal relations between the variables analyzed and policy change. With the application to the rural water management policy arena we intended to increase our insight into the practical applicability of this analytic method in an interactive workshop, the acceptability of the approach for the participating actors, its contribution to the process of decision making and our understanding of the rural water management policy arena in The Netherlands. We found that the Association of Water Authorities, the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Agriculture are the most powerful actor in the policy domain, while governance and cost and benefits of rural water management are the most salient issues. Progress in policy development for rural water management is probably most promising for the issues governance, costs and benefits, safety and rural living conditions through improved interaction between the Association of Water Authorities, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Rural Credit Bank. Besides these analytic results the interactive approach implemented increased the participants understanding of their dependency on other actors in the rural water management policy domain and supported them in developing a sound perspective on their dependency position. We concluded that the method developed is acceptable to real-world policy decision makers, can successfully be applied in an interactive setting, potentially contributes to the process of decision making by increasing the participants understanding of their dependency position, has the potential to delivers valuable advice for future decision-making and increases our understanding of policy development for rural water management in general.     

A Fuzzy-Stochastic Modeling Approach for Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis of Coupled Groundwater-Agricultural Systems

The complexity of water resources management increases when decisions about environmental and social issues are considered in addition to economic efficiency. Such complexities are further compounded by multiple uncertainties about the consequences of potential management decisions. In this paper, a new fuzzy-stochastic multiple criteria decision-making approach is proposed for water resources management in which a variety of criteria in terms of economic, environmental and social dimensions are identified and taken into account. The goal is to evaluate multiple conflicting criteria under uncertainties and to rank a set of management alternatives. The methodology uses a simulation-optimization water management model of a strongly interacting groundwater-agriculture system to enumerate criteria based on these bio-physical process interactions. Fuzzy and/or qualitative information regarding the decision-making process for which quantitative data is not available are evaluated in linguistic terms. Afterwards, Monte Carlo simulation is applied to combine these information and to generate a probabilistic decision matrix of management alternatives versus criteria in an uncertain environment. Based on this outcome, total performance values of the management alternatives are calculated using ordered weighted averaging. The proposed approach is applied to a real world example, where excessive groundwater withdrawal from the coastal aquifer for irrigated agriculture has resulted in saltwater intrusion, threatening the economical basis of farmers and associated societal impacts. The analysis has provided potential decision alternatives which can serve as a platform for negotiation and further exploration. Furthermore, sensitivity of different inputs to resulting rankings is investigated. It is found that decision makers’ risk aversion and risk taking attitude may yield different rankings. The presented approach suits to systematically quantify both probabilistic and fuzzy uncertainties associated with complex hydrosystems management.     

A New Integrated MADM Technique Combined with ANP,FTOPSIS and Fuzzy Max-Min Set Method for Evaluating Water Transfer Projects

In sustainable water resources management, it is essential to rank inter-basin water transfer projects. This task is difficult due to many different conflict criteria, complex relations among criteria and various judgments of decision makers. In this paper, an integrated multiple attribute group decision making method consists of ANP (Analytical Network Process), fuzzy TOPSIS and fuzzy max-min set methods is proposed for evaluating water transfer projects. A set of over 60 criteria in social, environmental and economic sectors are used for ranking four water transfer projects in Karun River based on three decision maker judgments. A key novelty of the proposed methodology is its ability to model both complex relations among different criteria in water management and the influence of decision maker judgments’ weights on the final ranking in group decision making problem. The procedure starts by obtaining the priority of water transfer projects and the weight of each decision maker judgments by employing ANP and fuzzy TOPSIS, respectively. These weights are used as inputs in the fuzzy max-min set method. Then the effects of decision maker weights on the final ranking are determined in fuzzy environment. Finally, the sensitivity analysis of decision makers’ weights has been conducted. The results show that the proposed method is an effective tool for group decision making problems by considering different criteria and decision makers’ weights.     

Fuzzy AHP Assessment of Water Management Plans

There are two mainstreams when using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). One is the standard applications of crisp distributive and ideal mode versions. The other is characterised by fuzzification of the AHP methodology and by attempts to better tackle inherently uncertain and imprecise decision processes with quantitative and qualitative data. The latter is characterised by different approaches to fuzzificating the decision problem; the way of conducting judgment and evaluating process; and finally, in synthesising the results and manipulating fuzzy numbers to devise priorities for the decision alternatives. This paper presents a fuzzy methodology for solving fully structured decision problems with criteria, sub-criteria and alternatives. It follows the logic of AHP in a simple and straightforward manner, efficiently aggregates criteria and sub-criteria into unique hierarchical level and applies a total integral method for comparing decision alternatives. The proposed methodology has been used for the assessment of water management plans in part of the Paraguacu River Basin in Brazil.     

Identifying Optimal Water Resources Allocation Strategies through an Interactive Multi-Stage Stochastic Fuzzy Programming Approach

In this study, an interactive multi-stage stochastic fuzzy programming (IMSFP) approach has been developed through incorporating an interactive fuzzy resolution (IFR) method within an inexact multi-stage stochastic programming framework. IMSFP can deal with dual uncertainties expressed as fuzzy boundary intervals that exist in the objective function and the left- and right-hand sides of constraints. Moreover, IMSFP is capable of reflecting dynamics of uncertainties and the related decision processes through constructing a set of representative scenarios within a multi-stage context. A management problem in terms of water resources allocation has been studied to illustrate applicability of the proposed approach. The results indicate that a set of solutions under different feasibility degrees (i.e., risk of constraint violation) has been generated for planning the water resources allocation. They can not only help quantify the relationship between the objective-function value and the risk of violating the constraints, but also enable decision makers (DMs) to identify, in an interactive way, a desired compromise between two factors in conflict: satisfaction degree of the goal and feasibility degree of constraints. Besides, a number of decision alternatives have been generated under different policies for water resources management, which permits in-depth analyses of various policy scenarios that are associated with different levels of economic penalties when the promised water-allocation targets are violated, and thus help DMs to identify desired water-allocation schemes under uncertainty.     

Extension of Fuzzy Delphi AHP Based on Interval-Valued Fuzzy Sets and its Application in Water Resource Rating Problems

Water resource management problems are complex by nature and are often accompanied by many uncertainties, requiring suitable decision-making tools to solve. If decision makers cannot agree on a method of defining linguistic variables based on the fuzzy sets, favorable results and more accurate modeling can be achieved by using interval-valued fuzzy sets (IVFSs), which provide an additional degree of freedom to represent the uncertainty and fuzziness of the real world. Accordingly, this study is aimed to extend a fuzzy Delphi analytic hierarchy process (AHP) based on IVFSs (Interval-Valued Fuzzy Delphi AHP) and its application to large-scale rating problems related to water resource management. The proposed method is subsequently applied to select an optimal strategy for the rural water supply of Nohoor Village in northeast Iran, as a case study and actual water resource rating problem. According to sensitivity analyses of the results and a comparison of the results with a real project, the proposed method offers good outcomes for water resource rating problems.     

GIS and Multi-Criteria Evaluation: Robust Tools for Integrated Water Resources Management

Abstract

Integrated water resources planning and management are considered very complex issues. These issues are usually addressed through the multi-sectoral, interdisciplinary and hierarchal decomposition approaches. In general, integrated resource management indicates the consideration of water, social, socio-economic, economic and environmental issues. The current study aims at merging the GIS and Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) techniques for the integrated water resource management of a cropped area. An area of about 120,000 Hectares located in the Northern Nile River Delta area with a coastal zone on the Mediterranean was selected and GIS was applied to represent the area's different environment, social, economic, and water factors. Different randomization cropping pattern distribution scenarios were proposed. Through the merging of GIS and MCE approaches, three scenarios were run and evaluated at three different levels: farm, canal catchment area and whole area. This merging resulted in a very powerful tool for the evaluation of different plans. The merging of GIS and MCE really facilitated the decision making process for these types of integrated water management problems.     

Prioritizing Long-term Watershed Management Strategies Using Group Decision Analysis

There is a growing consensus that an effective way of enhancing long-term water resources management and environmental sustainability is through locally based planning at the watershed scale. Managing watershed resources for particular uses requires interactive dialogue among all stakeholders who have different objectives. Therefore, the resolution of inter-group conflict should be an acknowledged task of the planning process. In this paper, an integrated framework for prioritizing watershed management strategies is proposed. A case study is employed to highlight the challenges of using group decision analysis in strategic planning and to illustrate the interaction between different stakeholders on watershed issues. In particular, two group decision-making approaches are used to assess and analyse different stakeholders' preferences for various strategies and alternatives. Professional experts, government agencies and community leaders constitute the different parties included in the framework. The main focus is on the application of group decision analysis in the long-term watershed planning process. The results of the overall preference analysis show that water resources development is the most important strategy followed by agricultural and range management.     

Application of Multi-Criterion Decision Making Analysis to Integrated Water Resources Management

In the context of integrated water resources management (IWRM), account should be taken of a wide range of factors including economic, social and environmental issues. Multi-criterion decision making (MCDM) approaches are applied to the case study in this paper to integrate different objectives into the planning, management and decision making process. A variety of criteria in terms of economic, social and environmental dimensions are identified and formulated for the purpose of MCDM analysis. A set of different management scenarios is proposed for the desired goals. They include reductions in irrigated areas, improved irrigation efficiencies, increased system loss for groundwater irrigation and changes in cropping pattern. An integrated water resources optimisation model (IWRO) is used to optimise surface and groundwater allocation, through which the identified criteria can be enumerated. Compromise programming (CP), which results in a compromise solution located as close as possible to an ideal solution, is adopted to carry out the MCDM analysis for the case study. The sensitivity of different sets of weights and different values of parameters related to CP is investigated. Results indicate that compromise programming is able to lead to satisfactory solutions. Performance of different alternatives is evaluated based on the compromise programming analysis, and potential decisional alternatives are proposed for further investigation.     

A Review of Multiple Criteria Analysis for Water Resource Planning and Management

Multiple criteria analysis (MCA) is a framework for ranking or scoring the overall performance of decision options against multiple objectives. The approach has widespread and growing application in the field of water resource management. This paper reviews 113 published water management MCA studies from 34 countries. It finds that MCA is being heavily used for water policy evaluation, strategic planning and infrastructure selection. A wide range of MCA methods are being used with the fuzzy set analysis, paired comparison and outranking methods being most common. The paper also examines the motivations for adopting MCA in water management problems and considers future research directions. This study was funded by the eWater CRC ().     

Consideration of Trends in Evaluating Inter-basin Water Transfer Alternatives within a Fuzzy Decision Making Framework

Evaluation of water supply schemes is an essential task for meeting the goals of inter-basin water transfer project system management. In general, water supply operation involves multi-objective and multifactor optimization and decision. In recent years, multicriterion decision making (MCDM) has emerged as an effective methodology due to its ability to combine quantitative and qualitative criteria for selection of the best alternative. This paper presents a new optimization method using fuzzy pattern recognition to appraise the water supply decision schemes in inter-basin diversion systems. The proposed method is capable to incorporate not only the will of the decision-makers but also the future development trend of water resources and water supply demand and makes the optimization results more reasonable and applicable. One case study for the Xi-River-to -Tanghe Reservoir Water Transfer Project System in China is presented to demonstrate the application of this method.     

A Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Group Decision-Making Model Based on Weighted Borda Scoring Method for Watershed Ecological Risk Management: a Case Study of Three Gorges Reservoir Area of China

In watershed ecological risk management, a series of alternatives will be analyzed in terms of multiple complex criteria, and different stakeholders with conflicting risk attitudes will be involved, which means that ecological risk management decision-making is a process surrounded by a wide range of uncertainties derived from scarcity of data, lack of knowledge, deficiency of assumptions and lexical vagueness. Based on modified Borda scoring method, this paper discusses how to apply a fuzzy multi-criteria group decision-making (FMCGDM) model into such a process. Then, a two-stage, 12-step MCDM methodology is proposed to obtain the optimal alternative decided by multiple decision-makers (DMs) from a given alternatives set. Firstly, all DMs make their own independent choice respectively, then, all the independent conclusions are integrated by using their subjective/objective weights. A modified Borda method is followed to rate and rank the weighted alternatives; in which the one with the highest score will be selected as the final preferable option. This model is demonstrated to be applicable and reliable by an application in the ecological risk decision making process of Three Gorges Reservoir area located in the upper reaches of Yangtze River in China. Of course, this method can also be applied in other research fields of environmental management.     

Towards integrated catchment management: increasing the dialogue between scientists,policy‐makers and stakeholders

The aim of the Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) project is to strengthen the role and inputs of the scientific community in the integrated catchment management process. Water resources management in the 21st century requires a radical reorientation and an effective dialogue between decision‐makers, stakeholders and the scientific water community. This paper offers a skeleton worldview as a starting point for that dialogue by bringing together key issues as identified by water resource experts from different disciplines. Experiences from all over the world demonstrate the need for multistakeholder advocacy and the importance of compromise‐building mechanisms. Water law defines the rules of the game and provides a necessary framework for policy and its execution. However, there must be adequate social acceptance and active compliance, otherwise the formal rules and administrative regulation will not be perceived as legitimate and ultimately could prove ineffective. The challenge now is to create management systems where the formal decision‐makers interact with relevant members of the scientific community, users and other stakeholders for a coordinated approach that successfully orchestrates water uses towards internal compatibility. Integrated water resources management is essential for securing a proper overview of all the activities that depend on the same resource—the precipitation over the basin—and which are internally linked by the mobility of water from the water divide to the river mouth.     

Identifying Uncertainty Guidelines for Supporting Policy Making in Water Management Illustrated for Upper Guadiana and Rhine Basins

In recent years, guidelines have been developed for supporting water managers in dealing with uncertainty in integrated water resources management (IWRM). Usually such guidelines have concentrated on certain aspects of processes in IWRM, notably on uncertainty associated with the modelling process and monitoring data. While this is of undisputed importance for supporting water managers in making well balanced and informed decisions, less attention has been paid to guiding policy makers in where uncertainty may emerge when considering the whole water management process. In this paper it is assessed in what way the policy makers can benefit from support in accounting for uncertainty at various stages in the water management process. Point of departure is an analysis of a broad range of uncertainty guidelines and their categorization in the water management process using a recently developed framework. Emphasis is on linking sources of uncertainty to uncertainty guidelines from an applied point of view in water management by developing a way to assist water managers to deal with uncertainty in IWRM and make informed and robust decisions. To support this, the Upper Guadiana basin in Spain and three Rhine basins are used as cases for water management issues in which it is demonstrated how water managers potentially can benefit from uncertainty guidelines in support of policy making, for instance with respect to implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD).     

平原河道生态护坡工程评价和方案决策方法

本文从成本、生态景观及施工工艺3个方面,建立了平原河道生态型护坡的评价指标体系.另外,引入模糊集理论,依据经典TOPSIS方法的基本思想,建立了基于TOPSIS的模糊多属性决策模型.用以对工程的方案进行优选决策.该评价体系和决策模型应用于沈阳市浑河生态护坡工程方案优选,结果表明,评估结果能较好地反映平原河道生态型护坡的特点并符合当地河道的实际情况.     

A framework for considering externalities in urban water asset management

Urban communities rely on a complex network of infrastructure assets to connect them to water resources. There is considerable capital investment required to maintain, upgrade and extend this infrastructure. As the remit of a water utility is broader than just financial considerations, infrastructure investment decisions must be made in light of environmental and societal issues. One way of facilitating this is to integrate consideration of externalities into decision making processes. This paper considers the concept of externalities from an asset management perspective. A case study is provided to show the practical implications to a water utility and asset managers. A framework for the inclusion of externalities in asset management decision making is also presented. The potential for application of the framework is highlighted through a brief consideration of its key elements.     

Water Resources Modelling under Data Scarcity: Coupling MIKE BASIN and ASM Groundwater Model

The Water Framework Directive calls for strategic water resources planning at a catchment level, yet data and information are scarce in the areas where they are most needed: in the new EU Member States and Third Counties trying to assess the impact of EU environmental legislation in their water resources management policy. The research presented here proposes the coupling of a strategic scale water resources management simulation model (MIKE-Basin) and a finite difference groundwater model (ASM), as a tool to support decision making in data scarce environments. The models were applied in a particularly data scarce region, the Vrbas River basin, in Republic Srpska (RS) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the results are presented and discussed. It is argued that the approach adopted is valid and useful as an initial knowledge development and optioneering step, which can guide a national data collection exercise to support detailed modelling, and inform a strategic decision making process relevant to the application of the water framework directive.