Water Policies and Conflict Resolution of Public Participation Decision-Making Processes Using Prioritized Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) Operators

[EN] There is a growing interest in environmental policies about how to implement public participation engagement in the context of water resources management. This paper presents a robust methodology, based on ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators, to conflict resolution decision-making problems under uncertain environments due to both information and stakeholders' preferences. The methodology allows integrating heterogeneous interests of the general public and stakeholders on account of their different degree of acceptance or preference and level of influence or power regarding the measures and policies to be adopted, and also of their level of involvement (i.e., information supply, consultation and active involvement). These considerations lead to different environmental and socio-economic outcomes, and levels of stakeholders' satisfaction. The methodology establishes a prioritization relationship over the stakeholders. The individual stakeholders' preferences are aggregated through their associated weights, which depend on the satisfaction of the higher priority decision maker. The methodology ranks the optimal management strategies to maximize the stakeholders' satisfaction. It has been successfully applied to a real case study, providing greater fairness, transparency, social equity and consensus among actors. Furthermore, it provides support to environmental policies, such as the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), improving integrated water management while covering a wide range of objectives, management alternatives and stakeholders.Llopis Albert, C.; Merigó-Lindahl, JM.; Liao, H.; Xu, Y.; Grima-Olmedo, J.; Grima-Olmedo, C. (2018). Water Policies and Conflict Resolution of Public Participation Decision-Making Processes Using Prioritized Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) Operators. Water Resources Management. 32(2):497-510. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1823-2S497510322Amin GR, Sadeghi H (2010) Application of prioritized aggregation operators in preference voting. Int J Intell Syst 25(10):1027–1034Chen TY (2014) A prioritized aggregation operator-based approach to multiple criteria decision making using interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets: A comparative perspective. Inf Sci 281:97–112Chen LH, Xu ZS (2014) A prioritized aggregation operator based on the OWA operator and prioritized measures. J Intell Fuzzy Syst 27:1297–1307Chen LH, Xu ZS, Yu XH (2014a) Prioritized measure-guided aggregation operators. IEEE Trans Fuzzy Syst 22:1127–1138Chen LH, Xu ZS, Yu XH (2014b) Weakly prioritized measure aggregation in prioritized multicriteria decision making. Int J Intell Syst 29:439–461CHJ (2016). Júcar river basin authority http://www.chj.es/CHS (2016). Segura river basin authority http://www.chsegura.es/Dong JY, Wan SP (2016) A new method for prioritized multi-criteria group decision making with triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. J Intell Fuzzy Syst 30:1719–1733EC (2000). Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 23 2000 Establishing a Framework for Community Action in the Field of Water Policy. Official Journal of the European Communities, L327/1eL327/72 22.12.2000Jackson S, Tan P-L, Nolan S (2012) Tools to enhance public participation and confidence in the development of the Howard East aquifer water plan, Northern Territory. J Hydrol 474:22–28Jin FF, Ni ZW, Chen HY (2016) Note on “Hesitant fuzzy prioritized operators and their application to multiple attribute decision making”. Knowl-Based Syst 96:115–119Kentel E, Aral MM (2007) Fuzzy Multiobjective Decision-Making Approach for Groundwater Resources Management. J Hydrol Eng 12(2):206–217. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1084-0699(2007)12:2(206).Kirchherr J, Charles KJ, Walton MJ (2016) Multi-causal pathways of public opposition to dam project in Asia: A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Glob Environ Chang 41:33–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.08.001Llopis-Albert C, Pulido-Velazquez D (2015) Using MODFLOW code to approach transient hydraulic head with a sharp-interface solution. Hydrol Process 29(8):2052–2064. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10354Llopis-Albert C, Palacios-Marqués D, Soto-Acosta P (2015) Decision-making and stakeholders constructive participation in environmental projects. J Bus Res 68:1641–1644. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.010Llopis-Albert C, Merigó JM, Xu Y, Huchang L (2017) Improving regional climate projections by prioritized aggregation via ordered weighted averaging operators. Environ Eng Sci. https://doi.org/10.1089/ees.2016.0546Maia R (2017) The WFD Implementation in the European Member States. Water Resour Manag 31(10):3043–3060. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1723-5Malczewski J, Chapman T, Flegel C, Walters D, Shrubsole D, Healy MA (2003) GIS - multicriteria evaluation with ordered weighted averaging (OWA): case study of developing watershed management strategies. Environ Plan A 35:1769–1784. https://doi.org/10.1068/a35156Merigó JM, Casanovas M (2011) The uncertain generalized owa operator and its application to financial decision making. Int J Inf Technol Decis Mak 10(2):211–230Merigó JM, Yager RR (2013) Generalized moving averages, distance measures and OWA operators. Int J Uncertain, Fuzziness Knowl-Based Syst 21(4):533–559Merigó JM, Palacios-Marqués D, Ribeiro-Navarrete B (2015) Aggregation systems for sales forecasting. J Bus Res 68:2299–2304Mesiar R, Stupnanová A, Yager RR (2015) Generalizations of OWA Operators. IEEE Trans Fuzzy Syst 23(6):2154–2162O’Hagan M (1988) Aggregating Template Rule Antecedents in Real-time Expert Systems with Fuzzy Set Logic. In: Proceedings of 22nd annual IEEE Asilomar Conference on Signals. IEEE and Maple Press, Pacific Grove, Systems and Computers, pp 681–689Rahmani MA, Zarghami M (2013) A new approach to combine climate change projections by ordered weighting averaging operator; applications to northwestern provinces of Iran. Glob Planet Chang 102:41–50Ran LG, Wei GW (2015) Uncertain prioritized operators and their application to multiple attribute group decision making. Technol Econ Dev Econ 21:118–139Ruiz-Villaverde, A., García-Rubio, M.A. (2017). Public Participation in European Water Management: from Theory to Practice. Water Resour Manag 31(8), 2479–2495. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1355-1Sadiq R, Tesfamariam S (2007) Probability density functions based weights for ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators: An example of water quality indices. Eur J Oper Res 182:1350–1368Sadiq R, Rodríguez MJ, Tesfamariam S (2010) Integrating indicators for performance assessment of small water utilities using ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators. Expert Syst Appl 37:4881–4891Verma R, Sharma B (2016) Prioritized information fusion method for triangular fuzzy information and its application to multiple attribute decision making. Int J Uncertain, Fuzziness Knowl-Based Syst 24:265–290Wang HM, Xu YJ, Merigó JM (2014) Prioritized aggregation for non-homogeneous group decision making in water resource management. Econ Comput Econ Cybern Stud Res 48(1):247–258Wei GW (2012) Hesitant fuzzy prioritized operators. Knowl-Based Syst 31:176–182Wei CP, Tang XJ (2012) Generalized prioritized aggregation operators. Int J Intell Syst 27:578–589Xu ZS (2005) An Overview of Methods for Determining OWA Weights. Int J Intell Syst 20:843–865Yager RR (1988) On ordered weighted averaging aggregation operators in multi-criteria decision making, IEEE Transactions on Systems. Man Cybern B 18(1988):183–190Yager RR (2008) Prioritized Aggregation Operators. Int J Approx Reason 48:263–274Yan H-B, Huynh V-N, Nakamori Y, Murai T (2011) On prioritized weighted aggregation in multi-criteria decision making. Expert Syst Appl 38(1):812–823Ye J (2014) Prioritized aggregation operators of trapezoidal intuitionistic fuzzy sets and their application to multicriteria decision-making. Neural Comput & Applic 25:1447–1454Yu XH, Xu ZS, Liu SS (2013) Prioritized multi-criteria decision making based on preference relations. Comput Ind Eng 66:104–115Zadeh LA (1983) A Computational Approach to Fuzzy Quantifiers in Natural Languages. Comput Math Appl 9:149–184Zarghami M, Szidarovszky F (2009) Revising the OWA operator for multi criteria decision making problems under uncertainty. Eur J Oper Res 198:259–265Zarghami M, Ardakanian R, Memariani A, Szidarovszky F (2008) Extended OWA Operator for Group Decision Making on Water Resources Projects. J Water Resour Plan Manag 134(3):266–275. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9496(2008)134:3(266)Zarghami M, Szidarovszky F, Ardakanian R (2009) Multi-attribute decision making on inter-basin water transfer projects. Transaction E. Ind Eng 16(1):73–80Zhao XF, Li QX, Wei GW (2014) Some prioritized aggregating operators with linguistic information and their application to multiple attribute group decision making. J Intell Fuzzy Syst 26:1619–1630Zhao N, Xu ZS, Ren ZL (2016) On typical hesitant fuzzy prioritized “or” operator in multi-attribute decision making. Int J Intell Syst 31:73–100Zhou LY, Lin R, Zhao XF, Wei GW (2013) Uncertain linguistic prioritized aggregation operators and their application to multiple attribute group decision making. Int J Uncertain, Fuzziness Knowl-Based Syst 21:603–627Zhou LG, Merigó JM, Chen HY, Liu JP (2016) The optimal group continuous logarithm compatibility measure for interval multiplicative preference relations based on the COWGA operator. Inf Sci 328:250–26