Dependent Environmental Indicators and Their Effect of Ranking

Abstract

The adverse effect on the environment is mainly due to the release of harmful chemicals that affects the world's ecological system. The concentrations of these chemicals are considered as the main indicators for environmental assessment. In some cases, environmental indicators are highly dependent and their inclusion will increase the size of experimental data to be collected and studied. Moreover, it will also increase computational time. This paper will answer the question if dependent indicators should be included when environmental decision making is to be made through ranking. It presents a methodology to implement simple tests on environmental indicators to check if their inclusion in the decision-making exercise is essential. A case study on desalination plants in the Arabian Gulf area will be presented. Although different and advanced desalination methods are being used, their environmental effects need to be assessed and a reliable methodology needs to be assessed and a reliable methodology needs to be established to identify existing harmful plants. The problem of insufficient data for decisions on desalination plants is resolved by identification of dependent indicators.