An AHP-based fuzzy interval TOPSIS assessment for sustainable expansion of the solid waste management system in Setubal Peninsula, Portugal

    Authors

    A. Pires; N. B. Chang;G. Martinho

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Resour. Conserv. Recycl.

    Keywords

    Waste management; Uncertainty; Multi-criteria decision making; Life; cycle assessment; Sustainable decisions; MULTICRITERIA DECISION-ANALYSIS; LOGIC SYSTEMS; SELECTION; ENVIRONMENT; SUPPORT; DESIGN; SETS; AID; Engineering, Environmental; Environmental Sciences

    Abstract

    Recent challenges in solid waste management in Europe are intimately tied to the fulfillment of the prescribed targets of recycling and organic waste recovery in response to the requirements of European Directives. Challenges with characterizing and propagating uncertainty, and validating predictions permeate decision making. In order to retrieve the societal ramifications in decision making, this study integrates the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) for alternative screening and ranking to help decision makers in a Portuguese waste management system. To underscore the role of uncertainty in decision making for alternative ranking, a fuzzy interval multi-attribute decision analysis was carried out to aid in environmental policy decisions. While AHP was used to determine the essential weighting factors, screening and ranking was carried out by TOPSIS under uncertainty expressed by using an interval-valued fuzzy (IVF) method. Such an AHP-based IVF-TOPSIS approach driven by a set of weighting factors associated with the selected criteria has been proven useful for final ranking via an iterative procedure. The practical implementation was assessed by a case study in Setubal Peninsula, Portugal for the selection of the best waste management practices under an uncertain environment, which is geared toward the target fulfillment in the future. (C) 2011 Elsevier By. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Resources Conservation and Recycling

    Volume

    56

    Issue/Number

    1

    Publication Date

    1-1-2011

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    7

    Last Page

    21

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000297524500002

    ISSN

    0921-3449

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