Fuzzy Relation Analysis for Multicriteria Water Resources Management

Abstract

This paper is a summary of the efforts of Working Committee 4 (WC4) for the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Basin water levels reference study. A fuzzy relation analysis (FRA) model was used to analyze (including ordering, rating, ranking, and screening) numerous disparate alternatives that had accumulated over the course of WC4’s study. Compared with other multicriteria methods for impact assessment under uncertainty, the FRA has advantages in data availability, computational requirements, and results interpretation. Relative strengths and weaknesses of different alternatives were evaluated by relating their impacts to a number of evaluation subcriteria. The results indicated that reasonable solutions have been generated, which were helpful for governments/stakeholders to obtain insights into the interrelationships between different system components. They, with results of other International Joint Commission research projects, also provided useful bases for assessing the relative effectiveness of different governmental actions to reduce the adverse impacts of fluctuating lake levels.