Sustainable Water Allocation Under Multi-disciplinary Framework: Dealing with Uncertainties in Decision Making and Optimization

Abstract

Evidence shows that studies on sustainable water allocation require multi-disciplinary expertise to achieve a combined perspective of natural and social science. Inspired by sustainable water engineering, this study incorporates a multi-disciplinary decision making framework for sustainable water allocation, and provides an example to demonstrate the proposed paradigm. Initially, experts in Hydrology, Meteorology, Geography, Water Resource Management, Sociology, Economics, and Environmental Sustainability are gathered in different workshops to discuss suitable criteria for consideration in water allocation schemes. The uncertainties in their linguistic expressions are accounted for by using multiple criteria decision making. Subsequently, the indicators and thresholds determined during the decision making process are transformed into parameters for a robust optimization model. Finally, a sample model that deals with the uncertainties in water allocation is shown. Under the proposed framework, multi-disciplinary expertise is critical and we recommend its use in future water allocation projects.