scholarly journals A Review of Multicriteria Assessment Techniques Applied to Sustainable Infrastructure Design

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio J. Navarro ◽  
Víctor Yepes ◽  
José V. Martí
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Making ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Sustainable Infrastructure ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Assessment Approach ◽  
Assessment Techniques ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Simple Additive Weighting

Given the great impacts associated with the construction and maintenance of infrastructures in both the environmental, the economic and the social dimensions, a sustainable approach to their design appears essential to ease the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. Multicriteria decision-making methods are usually applied to address the complex and often conflicting criteria that characterise sustainability. The present study aims to review the current state of the art regarding the application of such techniques in the sustainability assessment of infrastructures, analysing as well the sustainability impacts and criteria included in the assessments. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is the most frequently used weighting technique. Simple Additive Weighting has turned out to be the most applied decision-making method to assess the weighted criteria. Although a life cycle assessment approach is recurrently used to evaluate sustainability, standardised concepts, such as cost discounting, or presentation of the assumed functional unit or system boundaries, as required by ISO 14040, are still only marginally used. Additionally, a need for further research in the inclusion of fuzziness in the handling of linguistic variables is identified.

scholarly journals Ranking of hydropower projects based on sustainability criteria in India using multicriteria decision making methods

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 230
Author(s):  
Anuja Shaktawat ◽  
Shelly Vadhera
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Making ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Preference Ranking ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Promethee Ii ◽  
Sustainability Criteria

Assessment of hydropower projects with respect to sustainability criteria is a multidimensional and a complex issue that decision makers usually face during planning process. In hydropower projects, it is important to consider technical, environmental and social parameters instead of purely economic ones for sustainability assessment and decision making. Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods offer a practical approach to a problem having conflicting criteria. The flexibility to consider several criteria and objectives simultaneously made MCDM methods well accepted in the field of energy planning. This paper aims for applicability of MCDM methods which will facilitate the decision makers to select the most sustainable hydropower projects by making real and logical choices based on various sustainability criteria. For comprehensively rank hydropower projects of Indian region based on sustainability criteria four MCDM methods are applied i.e., analytic hierarchy process (AHP), technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE II) and elimination and choice translating reality (ELECTRE III). To ensure better decision making the eight criteria selected are compatible to the sustainable development of hydropower projects.

scholarly journals Neutrosophic Completion Technique for Incomplete Higher-Order AHP Comparison Matrices

Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 496
Author(s):  
Ignacio J. Navarro ◽  
José V. Martí ◽  
Víctor Yepes
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Design ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Making ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Multicriteria Decision ◽  
Agenda 2030 ◽  
Average Accuracy ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Human Thinking

After the recent establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Agenda 2030, the sustainable design of products in general and infrastructures in particular emerge as a challenging field for the development and application of multicriteria decision-making tools. Sustainability-related decision problems usually involve, by definition, a wide variety in number and nature of conflicting criteria, thus pushing the limits of conventional multicriteria decision-making tools practices. The greater the number of criteria and the more complex the relations existing between them in a decisional problem, the less accurate and certain are the judgments required by usual methods, such as the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The present paper proposes a neutrosophic AHP completion methodology to reduce the number of judgments required to be emitted by the decision maker. This increases the consistency of their responses, while accounting for uncertainties associated to the fuzziness of human thinking. The method is applied to a sustainable-design problem, resulting in weight estimations that allow for a reduction of up to 22% of the conventionally required comparisons, with an average accuracy below 10% between estimates and the weights resulting from a conventionally completed AHP matrix, and a root mean standard error below 15%.

scholarly journals Assessing Countries Sustainability: A Group Multicriteria Decision Making Methodology Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Roberto Castaneda ◽  
Pilar Arroyo ◽  
Lourdes Loza
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Clustering Algorithm ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Making ◽  
Weight Vector ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Multicriteria Decision ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Regional Associations

Sustainability is a complex and abstract concept. However, policy-makers and representatives of global and regional associations need to assess and track the sustainable development of countries and regions to define a sustainability strategic path. The objective of this research is to propose and validate a methodology to define a simple but proper sustainability index that serves as a proxy for the identification of the segments of most and least advanced countries according to their achievement of the sustainable development goals defined by the United Nations (UN). Several well-known quantitative methodologies are used to first define a summarized index of sustainable development. Second, multicriteria decision-making methods are applied to determine the relative importance of the elements or dimensions comprising the sustainability concept. Then, the simulated judgments of a group of experts is used to compute a group weight vector by applying the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAPH). Different aggregation methods are used to compute the importance that decision-makers assign to the several dimensions of sustainability. Finally, segments of countries generated with the clustering algorithm k-means are rated to identify sustainability benchmark segment(s) and groups of countries in need of support to attain the UN sustainability goals.

scholarly journals Ranking of hydropower projects based on sustainability criteria in India using multicriteria decision making methods

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
Anuja Shaktawat ◽  
Shelly Vadhera
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Making ◽  
Preference Ranking ◽  
Energy Planning ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Multicriteria Decision ◽  
Promethee Ii ◽  
Sustainability Criteria ◽  
Hierarchy Process

Assessment of hydropower projects with respect to sustainability criteria is a multidimensional and complex issue. It requires considering technical, environmental, and social parameters instead of purely economic ones in decision making for energy planning. The flexibility to consider several criteria and objectives simultaneously leads to the use of multicriteria decision making (MCDM) methods which are well accepted in the field of energy planning. This paper aims at applying MCDM methods in facilitating the decision makers to select the most sustainable hydropower projects in the Indian region by making real and logical choices based on eight important criteria selected from the literature that are compatible with sustainable development. To comprehensively rank hydropower projects three MCDM methods are applied i.e., the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE II), and elimination and choice translating reality (ELECTRE III). Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to calculate the weights of criteria. All three methods are well adapted for sustainability assessment and ranked Sharavathi (A9), Bhakra (A2), and Upper Indravati (A13) to be the most sustainable hydropower projects in India under the selected criteria. The study will be helpful in sustainable energy planning of hydropower projects with similar geographical conditions.

scholarly journals Sustainability-Related Decision Making in Industrial Buildings: An AHP Analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesús Cuadrado ◽  
Mikel Zubizarreta ◽  
Eduardo Rojí ◽  
Harkaitz García ◽  
Marcos Larrauri
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Economic Valuation ◽  
Multicriteria Decision Making ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Corporate Image ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Industrial Building ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
Industrial Buildings

Few other sectors have such a great impact on sustainability as the construction industry, in which concerns over the environmental dimension have been growing for some time. The sustainability assessment methodology presented in this paper is an AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) based on Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) and includes the main sustainability factors for consideration in the construction of an industrial building (environmental, economic, and social), as well as other factors that greatly influence the conceptual design of the building (employee safety, corporate image). Its simplicity is well adapted to its main objective, to serve as a sustainability-related decision making tool in industrial building projects, during the design stage. Accompanied by an economic valuation of the actions to be undertaken, this tool means that the most cost-effective solution may be selected from among the various options.

scholarly journals Strengthening the Participation of Organisations of Persons with Disabilities in the Decision-Making of National Government and the United Nations: Further Analyses of the International Disability Alliance Global Survey

Disabilities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 202-217
Author(s):  
Joanne McVeigh ◽  
Malcolm MacLachlan ◽  
Delia Ferri ◽  
Hasheem Mannan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
National Government ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Global Survey ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
Development Goals

The participation of organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) is crucial at each stage of policy processes at the local, regional, and international levels. However, decision-making mechanisms have traditionally excluded OPDs, failing to consult with them on decisions that impact on their daily lives. The overall aim of this study was to examine the participation of persons with disabilities and OPDs in development programmes and policies by exploring recommendations from a sample of OPDs on ways to strengthen their participation with government and the UN. Secondary data analysis was conducted using a global survey on the participation of OPDs, administered by the International Disability Alliance to OPD representatives. Two open-ended items were analysed, which explored participants’ recommendations on ways to strengthen their participation with government and the UN. Data were analysed using the descriptive and interpretive qualitative methods. Respondents provided recommendations on how to strengthen their participation with their national government and the UN, focusing on several issues including accessibility, human rights, and the need for inclusion of all OPDs and all groups of persons with disabilities. The synergy between the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Sustainable Development Goals presents opportunities for OPDs to increase their participation in development policies and programmes. It is vital, however, to dismantle the barriers to participation in decision-making by OPDs and persons with disabilities.

Study of Influence of Road Construction on Grassland in Inner Mongolia

2013 ◽  
Vol 807-809 ◽  
pp. 1881-1885
Author(s):  
Chun Mei Zhang ◽  
Min Zhao ◽  
Xue Lv
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy Process ◽  
Inner Mongolia ◽  
Road Construction ◽  
Environment Protection ◽  
Analytic Hierarchy ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Inner Mongolia Grassland ◽  
Hierarchy Process

In this paper, the indexes that are used to assess the influence of road construction on Inner Mongolia grassland have been proposed based on the environment protection perspective. The Analytic hierarchy process was employed to evaluate the importance of different indexes regarding to influence. These indexes would be used to provide information for decision making about road construction in order to achieve the sustainable development of grassland.

Pelaksanaan Sistem Tribunal di Malaysia: Ke Arah Penambahbaikan

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-242
Author(s):  
Fariza Romli ◽  
◽  
Harlida Abdul Wahab
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Administration System ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Administrative Body

The existence of a tribunal system, in addition to helping to smooth the administration system, is considered as sharing power with the judiciary in making decisions. Thus arose the question of decision- making power and prevention of abuse by the administrative body. In line with the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 to ensure justice in support of effective, responsible and inclusive institutions, transparent and fair practices are essential for ensuring people’s trust in the administrative body and government. This paper, therefore, discusses the tribunal system and its implementation in Malaysia. In view of this, tribunal systems that exist in other countries, especially the United Kingdom, are also examined as models for improvement. Matters such as autonomy or control of power and the trial process are among the issues raised. Recommendations for improvement are proposed based on three basic principles—openness, fairness and impartiality—to further strengthen the implementation of the existing tribunal system in line with developments abroad.

Urban equality and the SDGs: three provocations for a relational agenda

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (0) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Stephanie Butcher
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Global South ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Significant Potential ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Equitable Outcomes ◽  
The City

We live in an increasingly urban, increasingly unequal world. This is nowhere more evident than in cities of the global South, where many residents face deep injustices in their ability to access vital services, participate in decision-making or to have their rights recognised as citizens. In this regard, the rallying cry of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ‘leave no one behind’ offers significant potential to guide urbanisation processes towards more equitable outcomes, particularly for the urban poor. Yet the SDGs have also faced a series of criticisms which have highlighted the gaps and silences in moving towards a transformative agenda. This article explores the potentials of adopting a relational lens to read the SDGs, as a mechanism to navigate these internal contradictions and critiques and build pathways to urban equality. In particular, it offers three questions if we want to place urban equality at the heart of the agenda: who owns the city; who produces knowledge about the city; and who is visible in the city? Drawing from the practices of organised groups of the urban poor, this article outlines the key lessons for orienting this agenda towards the relational and transformative aims of urban equality.

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