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Water Scarcity Management in Arid Regions Based on an Extended Multiple Criteria Technique

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Abstract

Relying on strategic multi-criteria techniques is an effective step for identifying the sources of water management problems, formulating strategies, and prioritizing the alternatives. In this study, a hybrid use of recently developed “Best Worst Method” (BWM) and strength-weakness-opportunity-threat (SWOT) matrix was presented as a novel strategic multiple criteria strategic technique called B’WOT. B’WOT simplifies decision-making by handling rank-reversal in pairwise comparisons. The methodology employed in this paper involves: (1) finding the effective strategic factors of the region with SWOT; (2) evaluating the relative significance of strategic factors through a comparative framework including B’WOT along with a conventional Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)-SWOT called A’WOT; (3) prioritizing the strategies with a risk-based multiple criteria technique, and (4) aggregation of divergent ranks of the strategies under different risk-attitudes. Comparison of the BWM vs. AHP in ranking SWOT factors according to consistency ratio (CR) and total deviation (TD) showed the superiority of BWM. Unlike AHP that some of its pairwise comparison matrices violated the acceptable CR’s threshold, all the BWM’s matrices provided consistent outcomes. Moreover, TD values of BWM’s matrices were lower (better) than AHP ones. Employment of a risk-based technique was another merit of the study that provided a wide variety of prioritization lists with respect to pessimistic, neutral, and optimistic scenarios. Based on the aggregated results, “providing alternatives for low efficient and environmentally destructive agriculture by facilitating participation of private sector in industry and tourism sectors” was selected as the first priority to alleviate water scarcity in the Yazd province, Iran. In general, all the high-ranked strategies are -directly or indirectly- contributed to the seriously inefficient agricultural activities within the province.

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Abbreviations

AHP:

Analytic Hierarchy Process

BWM:

Best Worst Method

SWOT-TWOS:

Strengths–Weaknesses–Opportunities–Threats

B’WOT:

BWM-SWOT

A’WOT:

AHP-SWOT

EFs:

External factors

IFs:

Internal factors

MCDM:

Multi Criteria Decision-Making

QSPM:

Quantitative strategic planning matrix

SMCF:

Strategic multi-criteria framework

CR:

Consistency ratio

CI:

Consistency index

TD:

Total Deviation

OWA:

Ordered weighted averaging

IOWA:

Induced ordered weighted averaging

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Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate insightful and constructive comments and suggestions by two anonymous reviewers and respectable associate editor. We are thankful to Dr. Jafar Rezaei for his grate helps and constructive suggestions. We would like to acknowledge Dr. Alireza Moghaddam-Nia for his assistance in improving the language of the paper.

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  1. University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Nastaran Chitsaz & Ali Azarnivand

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  1. Nastaran Chitsaz
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  2. Ali Azarnivand
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Correspondence to Nastaran Chitsaz.

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Chitsaz, N., Azarnivand, A. Water Scarcity Management in Arid Regions Based on an Extended Multiple Criteria Technique. Water Resour Manage 31, 233–250 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1521-5

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