A MCDM model for urban water conservation strategies adapting simos procedure for evaluating alternatives intra-criteria

Abstract

This paper proposes a MCDM model based on the SMARTER method for the problem of urban water conservation strategies. The main contribution of this decision model is the use of Simos procedure adapted for evaluating alternatives intra-criteria, specifically on qualitative attributes. In fact, analyses of water resources problems are normally very complex, not only because this involves multiple alternative actions and objectives, but also because many attributes are subjective or need to be evaluated qualitatively. Nevertheless, there are many approaches to dealing with a semantic scale so as to make evaluation easier. However, it is often the case that the DM does not feel comfortable with the fixed nominal scale adopted or with the number of evaluations since the alternatives often need to be compared pairwise. On the other hand, a simple conversion from a nominal to an ordinal scale normally loses information. For these reasons, this paper proposes an adaptation of Simos procedure, associating 'playing cards' to evaluate alternatives on qualitative attributes, in order to facilitate the elicitation process. To show the applicability of the model proposed, a Brazilian case study is conducted. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.