Fuzzy TOPSIS Multi‐Criteria Decision Analysis Applied to Karun Reservoirs System

Water resource systems, with an abundance of project purposes and resource values, are subject to conflicting policy, planning, and management decisions. Multi‐criteria decision making methods (MCDM) provide a framework to help water managers identify critical issues, attach relative priorities to those issues, select best compromise alternatives, and facilitate communication to gain general acceptance. This paper addresses a method that incorporates several system factors/components within a general framework for providing a holistic analysis of the problems and comprehensive evaluation of the related mitigation/adaptation measures and policy responses. The method accounts for uncertainties in both the quantification and importance of objectives in the ranking process. The proposed fuzzy multi‐criteria decision making process uses the well known Technique for Order Preference by Similarity of Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method in both deterministic and uncertain environments. The performance of the proposed approach to a real water resource management problem in Iran is illustrated. Results show that the model may be used in a large‐scale multi‐level assessment process. Ranks of the alternatives are presented using deterministic and fuzzy based models.