Uncertainty Modelling of Waste Disposal Site Selection (Case Study: Marivan City)

Abstract

Waste disposal site selection is complex and multifaceted decision making process. In this regard to find appropriate sites, there are different local, national and international standards. These standards emphasize on certain criteria and related on different environmental, economic, social and political considerations. Lack of a comprehensive, integrated and efficient waste disposal site selection approach for determination of the proper sites stems from different experts comments. Since every expert in such problems doesn’t have adequate knowledge of all aspects about the subject; their opinions are facing with uncertainty. This study aims to modeling uncertainty of waste disposal site selection based on Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST). The main contribution of this study is the reduction of uncertainty in the standard combination according to experts using DST. In this research three main standards including ‘Environment Protection Agency of Iran (EPAI)’, ‘Management and Planning Organization of Iran (MPOI)’ and ‘Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA)’ standards are considered and then site selection performed for each standard independently. In order to combining these standards, opinions of 40 experts are attained through DST as an integration approach that is able to manage the uncertainty. These comments are examined by DST and gained results are depicted as waste disposal location. Finally, the achieved results are compared with the results of simple weighting method (average of the opinion experts). Results showed that standard weight in questioning, that does not follow the normal, gives a lot of uncertainty in analysis that DST significantly reduces its impact.