Περίληψη
In land management issues, decision makers are often dealing with complex
and multifaceted problems. They must ensure both the sustainable usage of natural resources
and economic development. They have to balance conflicting objectives. They also face the
‘Never In My BackYard’ (NIMBY) phenomenon ?the citizens rising opposition when undesirable
but indispensable interventions are concretized and touch upon their local societies. The
combined use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) based tools and decision analysis
methods can help to overcome these difficulties. This approach provides a consistent
framework for dealing with conflicting objectives, in structured or semi-structured
problems, and at the same time, allows the analysis to take account of the stakeholders’
preferences. Recent developments in both fields expand the abilities of the Boolean overlay
procedures, which are supported by the comme ...
In land management issues, decision makers are often dealing with complex
and multifaceted problems. They must ensure both the sustainable usage of natural resources
and economic development. They have to balance conflicting objectives. They also face the
‘Never In My BackYard’ (NIMBY) phenomenon ?the citizens rising opposition when undesirable
but indispensable interventions are concretized and touch upon their local societies. The
combined use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) based tools and decision analysis
methods can help to overcome these difficulties. This approach provides a consistent
framework for dealing with conflicting objectives, in structured or semi-structured
problems, and at the same time, allows the analysis to take account of the stakeholders’
preferences. Recent developments in both fields expand the abilities of the Boolean overlay
procedures, which are supported by the commercial GIS software packages, to the
consideration of decision criteria as well. To maximize the efficiency of the whole
analysis, particular interest presents the combined use of Multiple Criteria Decision
Analysis Methods with GIS based tools, forming the so called MultiCriteria Spatial Decision
Support Systems (MC-SDSS), in order to rank the acceptable locations according to their
relative importance in satisfying the objectives of the analysis. Moreover, the development
of methodological frameworks and tools that allow suitability analysis performance to deal
with the decision makers vagueness is considered, proposing synergies with the fuzzy
extensions of the multiattribute decision making methods. The present thesis is organized in
seven chapters. Analytically: The first chapter provides an introduction to current GIS
capabilities and their restrictions in supporting suitability analysis procedures. After a
sort review in multiattribute decision analysis, the main features of the decision flowchart
in MultiCriteria Spatial Decision Support Systems (MCSDSS) is presented, followed by an
extended bibliographical survey. The second chapter provides the basic principles of
preference modeling in multiattribute utility theory. Moreover the major procedures that are
used in criterion maps weights estimation and standardization are presented. The above
procedures are discussed in detail since they are components of the proposed decision
support system. The third chapter consists of the decision rules that are used in raster
based MC-SDSS, such as WLC, Compromise Programming, TOPSIS, OWA. Considering that decision
rules provide the basis for alternatives ordering, this chapter aims to describe, on the one
hand, the assumptions that underling each approach and, on the other hand, to provide
explanations about the choice behavior for each one separately. Fourth chapter, focuses on
the Analytic Hierarchy Process and its use in spatial related decision problems. The
procedures that are followed in the standard version of the method for deriving local
priorities are discussed in detail as well as the method’s fuzzy extensions. As a result,
SF-AHP is proposed that enables suitability analysis implementation using fuzzy variables
for the decision parameters evaluation. In the fifth chapter, the main features of the
PROMETHEE methods are described and a comparative analysis with the multiattribute utility
theory is provided. Considering the large number of evaluation alternatives in raster based
multicriteria suitability analysis computational limitations in methods implementation
arise. The proposed here methodological framework entitled “SFPROMETHEE” allows the complete
ranking of alternatives through the combined use of method’s fuzzy extension and the by
criterion net flows estimations. Moreover it is noticed that SFPROMETHEE can be further
combined with SF-AHP using fuzzy additive weighting as decision rule. Chapter six consists
of a case study regarding the wastewater treatment problem. Considering issues of the
decentralized treatment strategy, two hierarchical decision models are formed. The first
enables different treatment options evaluation considering both quantitative and qualitative
data, while the second is used for performing GIS based suitability analysis for natural
systems site selection. Suitability index is estimated using ten different evaluation
options considering SF-AHP and the two versions of SF-PROMETHEE. Results interpretation is
achieved through spatial correlation performance of alternatives rankings derived by each
one of the evaluation options implementation. Chapter seven provides thesis conclusions and
highlights various issues for further research. Appendix A presents the major features and
the rational behind the MC-SDSS use that has been developed in ArcGIS environment. The
proposed SDSS supports hierarchical decision structures with a variety of WLC options and
SF-AHP. Appendix B consists of the pairwise comparison matrices and the corresponding
priorities estimation of the examined wastewater treatment options evaluation.
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