Tackling complex emergency response solutions evaluation problems in sustainable development by fuzzy group decision making approaches with considering decision hesitancy and prioritization among assessing criteria

Abstract

In order to be prepared against potential balance-breaking risks affecting economic development, more and more countries have recognized emergency response solutions evaluation (ERSE) as an indispensable activity in their governance of sustainable development. Traditional multiple criteria group decision making (MCGDM) approaches to ERSE have been facing simultaneous challenging characteristics of decision hesitancy and prioritization relations among assessing criteria, due to the complexity in practical ERSE problems. Therefore, aiming at the special type of ERSE problems that hold the two characteristics, we investigate effective MCGDM approaches by hiring interval-valued dual hesitant fuzzy set (IVDHFS) to comprehensively depict decision hesitancy. To exploit decision information embedded in prioritization relations among criteria, we firstly define an fuzzy entropy measure for IVDHFS so that its derivative decision models can avoid potential information distortion in models based on classic IVDHFS distance measures with subjective supplementing mechanism; further, based on defined entropy measure, we develop two fundamental prioritized operators for IVDHFS by extending Yager’s prioritized operators. Furthermore, on the strength of above methods, we construct two hesitant fuzzy MCGDM approaches to tackle complex scenarios with or without known weights for decision makers, respectively. Finally, case studies have been conducted to show effectiveness and practicality of our proposed approaches.