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A Multi-Criteria Group Decision Making Methodology Using Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Sets: Application to Water Resources Management

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Abstract

In this paper, a new fuzzy group decision-making methodology which determines and incorporates negotiation powers of decision makers is developed. The proposed method is based on a combination of interval type-2 fuzzy sets and a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model, namely TOPSIS. To examine the applicability of the proposed methodology, it is used for finding the best scenario of allocating water and reclaimed wastewater to domestic, agricultural, and industrial water sectors and restoring groundwater quantity and quality in the Varamin region located in Tehran metropolitan area in Iran. The results show that the selected scenario leads to an acceptable groundwater conservation level during a long-term planning horizon. Although the capital cost of this scenario is high, which leads to groundwater restoration during the 34-year planning horizon, it is determined as the best allocation scenario. This scenario also entails the second least pumping cost, due to less water allocation from the groundwater. To evaluate the results of the proposed methodology, they are compared with those obtained using some well-known interval type-2 decision-making approaches including arithmetic-based, TOPSIS-based, and likelihood-based comparison methods. The Spearman correlation coefficient shows that the obtained results generally concur with those of the other methods. It is also concluded that the proposed methodology gives more reasonable results by calculating and considering the negotiation powers of decision makers in an extended TOPSIS-based group decision-making model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Civil Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Ehsan Pourmand, Najmeh Mahjouri & Maryam Hosseini

  2. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Iran

    Farzaneh Nik-Hemmat

Authors
  1. Ehsan Pourmand
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  2. Najmeh Mahjouri
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  3. Maryam Hosseini
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  4. Farzaneh Nik-Hemmat
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Correspondence to Najmeh Mahjouri.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 10 The elements of the weighted decision matrix and the ranking values corresponding to the first three DMs
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Table 11 The elements of the weighted average decision matrix and the weighted average weight matrix and corresponding ranking values
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Pourmand, E., Mahjouri, N., Hosseini, M. et al. A Multi-Criteria Group Decision Making Methodology Using Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Sets: Application to Water Resources Management. Water Resour Manage 34, 4067–4092 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-020-02657-7

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