Stochastic Waste-Management Multi-Criteria Decision-Making
Developing waste management solutions, at local, regional and national levels, can be a complex exercise, owing to conflicting environmental, social and economic criteria incorporated in the decision-making process. Furthermore, various sources of uncertainty are inherent to the exercise, such as uncertain waste generation data, future projections, subjective assessments of criteria weights and decision thresholds in outranking procedures.
This multiple uncertainty adds a new layer of difficulty and calls into question the validity of decision-making outcomes. The project integrates a life-cycle analysis system with a multi-criteria outranking procedure and a new approach to the quantification of social criteria, all within a stochastic framework which takes into account various sources of uncertainty.
It will allow decision-makers to reach more robust decisions and develop a better understanding of its limits of validity and can have implications for, in addition to the waste-management sector, other environmental disciplines such as water management