Abstract
Assessing the water resource system from a circular economic perspective is essential for sustainable environmental development. In this study, a water recycling system, which consists of both water utilization and wastewater treatment processes with a closed-loop feedback cycle, is introduced. To evaluate the water recycling system with imprecise data, a fuzzy game cross-efficiency network data envelopment analysis model is developed. The proposed approach employs peer evaluation and considers the competitive relationship between decision-making units, enabling a more discriminatory power for evaluation. An application of the proposed approach to assess the water resource management performance of European Union countries is investigated. Our results show that the water utilization efficiency has a major impact on the overall system efficiency. Additional validation and sensitivity analysis are implemented to recognize the sources of inefficiency. Further recommendations are included to improve the efficiency of each process. A comparison between the proposed method and other studies is also presented to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availibility
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
References
Bian Y, Yan S, Xu H (2014) Efficiency evaluation for regional urban water use and wastewater decontamination systems in China: a DEA approach. Resour Conserv Recycl 83:15–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.11.010
Byrnes J, Crase L, Dollery B, Villano R (2010) The relative economic efficiency of urban water utilities in regional New South Wales and Victoria. Resour Energy Econ 32(3):439–455. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2009.08.001
Carlsson C, Korhonen P (1986) A parametric approach to fuzzy linear programming. Fuzzy Sets Syst 20:17–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0114(86)80028-8
Chen W, Zhou K, Yang S (2017) Evaluation of China’s electric energy efficiency under environmental constraints: a DEA cross efficiency model based on game relationship. J Clean Prod 164:38–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.178
Hu CF, Wang HF, Liu T (2022) Measuring efficiency of a recycling production system with imprecise data. Numer Algebra Control Optim 12(1):79–91. https://doi.org/10.3934/naco.2021052
Kao C, Hwang SN (2008) Efficiency decomposition in two-stage data envelopment analysis: an application to non-life insurance companies in Taiwan. Eur J Oper Res 185(1):418–429. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2006.11.041
Liang L, Cook WD, Zhu J (2008) DEA models for two-stage processes: game approach and efficiency decomposition. Nav Res Logist 55:643–653. https://doi.org/10.1002/nav.20308
Li F, Zhu Q, Liang L (2018) Allocating a fixed cost based on a DEA-game cross efficiency approach. Expert Syst Appl 96(15):196–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2017.12.002
Liang X, Li J, Guo G, Li S, Gong Q (2021) Evaluation for water resource system efficiency and influencing factors in western China: a two-stage network DEA-Tobit model. J Clean Prod 328:129674. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.129674
Lorenzo-Toja Y, Vazquez-Rowe I, Chenel S, Marin-Navarro D, Moreira MT, Feijoo G (2015) Ecoefficiency analysis of Spanish WWTPs using the LCA + DEA method. Water Res 68:651–666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2014.10.040
Omrani H, Shafaat K, Emrouznejad A (2018) An integrated fuzzy clustering cooperative game data envelopment analysis model with application in hospital efficiency. Expert Syst Appl 14:615–628. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2018.07.074
Seiford LM, Zhu J (2002) Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation. Eur J Oper Res 142(1):16–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-2217(01)00293-4
Tavana M, Khalili-Damghani K (2014) A new two-stage Stackelberg fuzzy data envelopment analysis model. Measure 53:277–296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2014.03.030
Thanassoulis E (2000) The use of data envelopment analysis in the regulation of UK water utilities: water distribution. Eur J Oper Res 126(2):436–453. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0377-2217(99)00303-3
Zadeh LA (1965) Fuzzy sets. Inf Control 8:338–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0019-9958(65)90241-X
Zhou X, Luo R, Yao L, Cao S, Wang S, Lev B (2018) Assessing integrated water use and wastewater treatment systems in China: a mixed network structure two-stage SBM DEA model. J Clean Prod 185:533–546. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.278
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the referees for their very constructive comments in revising this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflict of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this rticle.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Huang, HC., Liu, FB., Hu, CK. et al. Efficiency measurement of the water recycling system in a fuzzy environment. Sustain. Water Resour. Manag. 10, 124 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-024-01101-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-024-01101-7