Author(s): Xitlali Delgado-Galvan; Julio Benitez; Joaquin Izquierdo; Rafael Perez-Garcia
Linked Author(s): Joaquin Izquierdo, Xitlali Delgado-Galván
Keywords: Decision-making; AHP; Water leakage
Abstract: Decision-making in urban water management increasingly becomes more complex due to large number of alternatives and multiple goals that conflict with each other. To help engineers and managers to make suitable decisions it is necessary to design powerful decision support expert systems. This paper presents an application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for decisionmaking on leakage management in water supply utilities. Decision makers need to be concerned not only with tangible and quantitative factors, such as costs in engineering selection problems, but also with intangible and qualitative factors, such as environmental and social impacts. AHP is a multiple attribute decision method that utilizes structured pair-wise comparisons using numerical judgments from an absolute scale of numbers. Judgments are compiled into matrices that should exhibit some characteristics: positivity, homogeneity, reciprocity and consistency. The relative weights of the decision elements are estimated by using prioritization techniques.
Year: 2011