Analyse multicritère pour la priorisation des interventions en matière d’approvisionnement en eau en milieu rural au Sénégal : cas de la région de Diourbel

De nombreux programmes et projets visant l’accès aux ressources en eau sont initiés au Sénégal pour satisfaire une demande en eau qui se fait de plus en plus pressante, notamment en milieu rural. L’insuffisance des moyens financiers impose que ces projets soient échelonnés dans le temps. En amont des études de faisabilité technique et économique, il est nécessaire d’établir des priorités d’intervention. Cette étude présente une analyse multicritère d’aide à la décision pour prioriser les besoins d’intervention en matière d’approvisionnement en eau en milieu rural au Sénégal. Le cas de la région de Diourbel est étudié. Après avoir identifié les objectifs relatifs à l’approvisionnement en eau au niveau de la région, six critères quantitatifs et qualitatifs permettant de mesurer les degrés d’atteinte de ces objectifs sont définis. Ces critères permettent d’évaluer la priorité en matière de projets de développement éventuels. Il s’agit de critères portant sur la qualité des eaux disponible, la quantité d’eau disponible pour les besoins domestiques, la distance d’accès aux points d’eau, la disponibilité de l’eau pour l’agriculture, et enfin l’acceptabilité des coûts de l’eau ainsi que le potentiel de développement. La démarche a abouti au rangement des huit arrondissements de la région de Diourbel par ordre de priorité d’intervention. Les critères ont été pondérés par des acteurs de la gestion des ressources en eau au Sénégal. Une analyse permet de juger de l’effet des différentes pondérations sur le classement des priorités obtenu. L’analyse du processus dans son ensemble permet de mettre en exergue les difficultés liées à l’utilisation d’une telle démarche dans le contexte sénégalais tout en montrant les avantages que l’on peut en tirer.Many programs and projects for water resources management have been initiated in Senegal to satisfy an increasing demand for water, especially in rural areas. The lack of sufficient funding requires that these projects be spread over time. Therefore, prior to any technical or economic feasibility study, it is necessary to identify the higher priority areas. This study presents a multicriteria analysis for ranking rural subareas in Senegal, in particular in the region of Diourbel, in terms of the priorities of water supply needs. After having identified the objectives related to water supply on the regional scale, six quantitative and qualitative criteria were defined. These criteria pertain to the available water quality, the available quantity of water for domestic needs, the distance to water distribution points, the availability of water for agriculture, the acceptability of water costs and the development potential of a rural subarea. Indicators are proposed for each criterion based on the data available at the time of the study. Criteria weights were obtained from various water resource management stakeholders in Senegal. Our multicriteria analysis led to the ranking of eight districts of the Diourbel region in terms of intervention priority. An analysis enabled us to evaluate the effect of the criteria weights on the district rankings. Our experience with this project has identified the difficulties associated with conducting a multicriteria analysis in the Senegalese context, while emphasizing promising application possibilities

An interactive decision support method for real estate management in a multi-criteria framework – REMIND

Managing a housing stock involves complex decision making such as the design of a multiyear action plan pertaining to the maintenance and upgrading of the properties. In order to address this problem, we developed a novel interactive decision support method (REMIND) to assist a housing stock manager in the progressive design and choice of a multiyear action plan based on multiple criteria. It uses a filtering approach both at the individual action level and at the global scenario level where the housing stock manager can gradually express preferences and conduct what-if analyses. An optimization component based on Tabu search allows the decision-maker to obtain a set of good plans from which he can choose the one to implement. The quality of a plan is defined in terms of how well it meets the goals on each criterion. The application of the method was tested in a leading French property management company

A framework for post-project evaluation of multicriteria decision aiding processes from the stakeholders’ perspective : design and application

Numerous multicriteria decision aiding (MCDA) methods have been developed over the last decades and are now applied in various domains, sometimes using facilitated group workshops to create models. These models are all designed to improve decision processes. However, the lack of follow-up and post-project evaluations limit the understanding of how the participants experienced the group workshops and how the results were subsequently used within the organization. This is in contrast with the public participation research field, where a rich literature was developed for a posteriori evaluation of projects. Based on this literature, our research proposes a framework to evaluate, ex-post, MCDA projects. In order to illustrate this framework, we apply it to an MCDA project in Quebec City where a spatial decision support system to prioritize the redesign of streets as Complete Streets was built. Individual interviews were conducted with the Quebec City professionals that currently use, were leaders of the project, or have participated in the development of the decision support system. This research has identified that the need for change of practices within the workplace, communication problems, and the requirement for multidisciplinary work were at the root of the various challenges encountered during the workshops. Based on our experience, we propose some lessons learned and potential solutions that can enhance the body of literature in MCDA

A review of cost–benefit analysis and multicriteria decision analysis from the perspective of sustainable transport in project evaluation

Transport decision processes have traditionally applied cost-benefit analysis (CBA) with benefits mainly relating to time savings, and costs relating to infrastructure and maintenance costs. However, a shift toward more sustainable practices was initiated over the last decades to remedy the many negative impacts of automobility. As a result, decision processes related to transport projects have become more complex due to the multidimensional aspects and to the variety of stakeholders involved, often with conflicting points of view. To support rigorous decision making, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is, in addition to CBA, often used by governments and cities. However, there is still no consensus in the transport field regarding a preferred method that can integrate sustainability principles. This paper presents a descriptive literature review related to MCDA and CBA in the field of transport. Among the 66 considered papers, we identified the perceived strengths and weaknesses of CBA and MCDA, the different ways to combine them and the ability of each method to support sustainable transport decision processes. We further analysed the results based on four types of rationality (objectivist, conformist, adjustive and reflexive). Our results show that both methods can help improve the decision processes and that, depending on the rationality adopted, the perceived strengths and weaknesses of MCDA and CBA can vary. Nonetheless, we observe that by adopting a more global and holistic perspective and by facilitating the inclusion of a participative process, MCDA, or a combination of both methods, emerge as the more promising appraisal methods for sustainable transport

Decision support for planning maritime search and rescue operations in Canada

In this project we constructed and evaluated research artifacts to support Search and Rescue (SAR) mission coordinators in planning searches for missing persons or objects at sea. An iterative heuristic based optimization model was formulated and implemented in a prototype that is integrated in a Decision Support System. Using representative examples, we show that the new planning method can help coordinators with the complex task of allocating search resources to search areas in a way that maximizes the chances of finding survivors quickly. Although developed for the Canadian Coast Guard, our method can be used in other countries. We followed Design Science Research guidelines and our design process was according to the Design Science Research Methodology. The research entry point was client and context initiated and beta testing with users is planned in the spring of 2019. It is expected that our innovative artifacts will contribute to improving the SAR system and saving more lives

Vers une planification multicritère dans le cadre de missions de recherche et sauvetage terrestres

Les opérations de recherche et sauvetage nécessitent l'allocation efficace des ressources disponibles dans le but de retrouver un objet de recherche en situation critique (e.g., les survivants d'un incident aéronautique). L'état d'avancement des travaux sur une méthode de planification multicritère des opérations de recherches en milieu terrestre utilisant des outils de système d'informations géographiques, des méthodes de discrétisations par graphes de visibilité et d'accessibilité, des métaheuristiques ainsi que la théorie de la recherche est présentée.Search and Rescue operations involve the efficient allocation of available resources in order to locate a lost search object caught in a critical situation (e.g., the survivors of an aeronautical incident). In this paper, we describe our work in progress for developing a multi-criteria inland search operations planning method. The method uses geographic information system tools, visibility and accessibility graphs discretization, metaheuristics and search theory