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Analysis of Flood Risk Management Strategies Based on a Group Decision Making Process via Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Numbers

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Abstract

The sustainability concept has influenced decision-making patterns in various managerial fields. Watershed-based flood risk management (FRM), as an extremely complex multidisciplinary issue, has to deal with various conflicting, sustainable development criteria. The following measures through a novel structure were considered to address the complexity and uncertainty of watershed-based FRM: (1) the FRM strategies were formulated via matching internal strategic factors against external ones through Strength-Weakness-Opportunity-Threat (SWOT-TOWS) matrix; (2) a Multi Attribute Group Decision Making (MAGDM) process was applied to prioritize the strategies with consideration of sustainable development attributes; (3) the Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Numbers (IVIFNs) were merged into TOWS matrix as a novel procedure to overcome the uncertainty of the judgments. According to pairwise comparisons of the seven proposed attributes, the urgency of need was obtained as the first-ranked attribute. The overall prioritization of 10 TOWS-based strategies with IVIFNs revealed that the highest priority among the strategies belonged to implementation of social learning process to raise the residents’ awareness concerning water and soil conservation plus sustainable agriculture with the aid of NGOs. Throughout the present study, SWOT-TOWS matrix not only could properly identify the fundamental strategic factors but also developed the mitigation strategies including structurally and non-structurally-based measures. In addition to the IVIFNs, pairwise comparisons performed appropriately to evaluate the attributes’ weights. Finally, the proposed IVIFN-based MAGDM technique allows the analysts to aggregate several individual exact numerical scores of an attribute into an IVIFN through a simple, practical and straightforward group decision making mechanism.

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Abbreviations

FRM:

Flood Risk Management

SDA:

Sustainable Development Attribute

MADM:

Multi Attributes Decision Making

MAGDM:

Multi Attributes Group Decision Making

AHP:

Analytic Hierarchy Process

CR:

Consistency Ratio

RI:

Random Index

IFS:

Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set

IVIFS:

Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set

IVIFNs:

Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Numbers

SWOT–TOWS:

Strength-Weakness-Opportunity-Threat

IFs:

Internal Factors

EFs:

External Factors

DM:

Decision-Maker

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge insightful comments from the anonymous reviewer and the associate editor on the previous version of the manuscript.

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  1. University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Ali Azarnivand & Arash Malekian

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  1. Ali Azarnivand
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  2. Arash Malekian
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Correspondence to Ali Azarnivand.

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Azarnivand, A., Malekian, A. Analysis of Flood Risk Management Strategies Based on a Group Decision Making Process via Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Numbers. Water Resour Manage 30, 1903–1921 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1259-0

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