Ranking Ground‐water Management Alternatives by Multicriterion Analysis

Abstract

An application of four multicriterion decision making (MCDM) techniques to a typical ground‐water management problem is presented. Criteria representing pumping yield, total costs, and water‐shortage risk are considered. The management model expressed in such a multicriterion form is based on the finite‐element method and a combined embedding/response matrix method. This model is used to generate a discrete representation of a nondominated solution set. Four MCDM techniques: compromise programming, ELECTRE III, multiattribute utility function, and UTA method representing, respectively, distance‐based, outranking, and utility (multiplicative and additive forms) approaches are examined as potential decision‐aid tools to select the appropriate management scheme. Comparison of the results shows that these quite different MCDM techniques lead to a similar subset of recommended solutions. Adequacy of these techniques for ground‐water management is discussed from the points of view of technique characteristics, decision maker's expectations, analyst's knowledge required, and method output, that is, ranking of alternatives.