IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/recore/v93y2014icp168-177.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk-based evaluation of wastewater treatment projects: A case study in Niasar city, Iran

Author

Listed:
  • Mirabi, Mehrdad
  • Mianabadi, Hojjat
  • Zarghami, Mahdi
  • Sharifi, Mohammad Bagher
  • Mostert, Erik

Abstract

For sustainable wastewater management, it is essential to consider social, environmental, geological and technical features as well as economic feature in the decision-making process. A limitation of many of the earlier works on wastewater management is that they take into account only financial criteria to make a decision for a given problem. Moreover, the decision-makers’ (DMs) attitude to risk, or optimism degree, when faced with uncertainty is not considered. In this paper, we study the application of risk-based multi-attribute decision-making (RB-MADM) methods to achieve sustainable wastewater management. Consideration of uncertainty, value tradeoffs, and different risk attitudes of decision makers are the important features of the developed methodology. A case study on the Iranian city of Niasar is presented to illustrate how this methodology can be applied to select the most preferred alternative for wastewater management among a set of options. The most preferred option is selected with respect to nine attributes under different optimism/pessimism degrees, using six different MADM methods. The results show that the ranking of options is sensitive to the optimism degree of the DMs. The proposed approach may help policy makers to achieve sustainable wastewater management.

Suggested Citation

  • Mirabi, Mehrdad & Mianabadi, Hojjat & Zarghami, Mahdi & Sharifi, Mohammad Bagher & Mostert, Erik, 2014. "Risk-based evaluation of wastewater treatment projects: A case study in Niasar city, Iran," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 168-177.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:93:y:2014:i:c:p:168-177
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2014.10.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344914002195
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resconrec.2014.10.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Al-Rashdan, Dina & Al-Kloub, Bashar & Dean, Angela & Al-Shemmeri, Tarik, 1999. "Environmental impact assessment and ranking the environmental projects in Jordan," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 30-45, October.
    2. Roy, Bernard & Vincke, Philippe, 1981. "Multicriteria analysis: survey and new directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 207-218, November.
    3. de Melo, Joao Joanaz & Camara, Antonio S., 1994. "Models for the optimization of regional wastewater treatment systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 1-16, February.
    4. Larichev, O. I. & Moshkovich, H. M., 1995. "ZAPROS-LM -- A method and system for ordering multiattribute alternatives," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 503-521, May.
    5. Bloemhof-Ruwaard, Jacqueline M. & van Beek, Paul & Hordijk, Leen & Van Wassenhove, Luk N., 1995. "Interactions between operational research and environmental management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 229-243, September.
    6. Kim, Yeonjoo & Chung, Eun-Sung & Jun, Sang-Mook & Kim, Sang Ug, 2013. "Prioritizing the best sites for treated wastewater instream use in an urban watershed using fuzzy TOPSIS," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 23-32.
    7. Mahdi Zarghaami, 2006. "Integrated Water Resources Management in Polrud Irrigation System," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 20(2), pages 215-225, April.
    8. Stefan Hajkowicz & Mike Young & Darla Hatton MacDonald, 2000. "Supporting Decisions: Understanding natural resource management assessment techniques," Natural Resource Management Economics 00_003, Policy and Economic Research Unit, CSIRO Land and Water, Adelaide, Australia.
    9. Eun-Sung Chung & Won-Pyo Hong & Kil Lee & Steven Burian, 2011. "Integrated Use of a Continuous Simulation Model and Multi-Attribute Decision-Making for Ranking Urban Watershed Management Alternatives," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(2), pages 641-659, January.
    10. Majid Sheikhmohammady & D. Marc Kilgour & Keith W. Hipel, 2010. "Modeling the Caspian Sea Negotiations," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 149-168, March.
    11. Various, 1973. "Conference Programs," NBER Chapters, in: The New Realities of the Business Cycle, pages 126-131, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Fang & Gao, Yue & Dong, Wenxu & Li, Zhiwei & Jia, Xiaoping & Tan, Raymond R., 2017. "Segmented pinch analysis for environmental risk management," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 353-361.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hajkowicz, Stefan & Higgins, Andrew, 2008. "A comparison of multiple criteria analysis techniques for water resource management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 184(1), pages 255-265, January.
    2. Greco, Salvatore & Słowiński, Roman & Wallenius, Jyrki, 2025. "Fifty years of multiple criteria decision analysis: From classical methods to robust ordinal regression," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 323(2), pages 351-377.
    3. Eun-Sung Chung & Kil Lee, 2009. "Identification of Spatial Ranking of Hydrological Vulnerability Using Multi-Criteria Decision Making Techniques: Case Study of Korea," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 23(12), pages 2395-2416, September.
    4. A.P. Wierzbicki, 1998. "Reference Point Methods in Vector Optimization and Decision Support," Working Papers ir98017, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    5. Serafim Opricovic, 2009. "A Compromise Solution in Water Resources Planning," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 23(8), pages 1549-1561, June.
    6. Patricia Jaramillo & Ricardo Smith & JoaquÍn Andréu, 2005. "Multi-Decision-Makers Equalizer: A Multiobjective Decision Support System for Multiple Decision-Makers," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 97-111, September.
    7. S. Maryam Masoumi & Nima Kazemi & Salwa Hanim Abdul-Rashid, 2019. "Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Automotive Industry: A Process-Oriented Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-30, July.
    8. P P Sutton & R H Green, 2007. "Choice is a value statement. On inferring optimal multiple attribute portfolios from non-optimal nominations," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(11), pages 1526-1533, November.
    9. Marco Migliore & Salvatore Amoroso & Valeria Cardaci & Mario Catalano, 2011. "The role of passenger modal shift nodes in the interaction between land use and transport system," ERSA conference papers ersa10p1606, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Borgonjon, Tessa & Maenhout, Broos, 2022. "An exact approach for the personnel task rescheduling problem with task retiming," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 296(2), pages 465-484.
    11. Harris, Irina & Naim, Mohamed & Palmer, Andrew & Potter, Andrew & Mumford, Christine, 2011. "Assessing the impact of cost optimization based on infrastructure modelling on CO2 emissions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 313-321, May.
    12. Aleta Lederwasch & Pierre Mukheibir, 2013. "The Triple Bottom Line and Progress toward Ecological Sustainable Development: Australia’s Coal Mining Industry as a Case Study," Resources, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-13, March.
    13. Letmathe, Peter & Wagner, Sandra, 2018. "“Messy” marginal costs: Internal pricing of environmental aspects on the firm level," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 41-52.
    14. Koronakos, Gregory & Sotiros, Dimitris & Despotis, Dimitris K. & Kritikos, Manolis N., 2022. "Fair efficiency decomposition in network DEA: A compromise programming approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    15. R. Roozbahani & S. Schreider & B. Abbasi, 2013. "Economic Sharing of Basin Water Resources between Competing Stakeholders," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(8), pages 2965-2988, June.
    16. Chuang-lin Fang & Chao Bao & Jin-chuan Huang, 2007. "Management Implications to Water Resources Constraint Force on Socio-economic System in Rapid Urbanization: A Case Study of the Hexi Corridor, NW China," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 21(9), pages 1613-1633, September.
    17. Hossein Mikhak & Mehdi Rahimian & Saeed Gholamrezai, 2022. "Implications of changing cropping pattern to low water demand plants due to climate change: evidence from Iran," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(8), pages 9833-9850, August.
    18. Dyack, Brenda & Connor, Jeffery D. & Hatton MacDonald, Darla, 2005. "Screening options and setting priorities for River Murray floodplains," 2005 Conference (49th), February 9-11, 2005, Coff's Harbour, Australia 137858, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    19. Thies, Christian & Kieckhäfer, Karsten & Spengler, Thomas S. & Sodhi, Manbir S., 2019. "Operations research for sustainability assessment of products: A review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(1), pages 1-21.
    20. Al-Rashdan, Dina & Al-Kloub, Bashar & Dean, Angela & Al-Shemmeri, Tarik, 1999. "Environmental impact assessment and ranking the environmental projects in Jordan," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 30-45, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:recore:v:93:y:2014:i:c:p:168-177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kai Meng (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/resources-conservation-and-recycling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.