Strategic rehabilitation planning of piped water networks using multi-criteria decision analysis

Scholten, Lisa; Scheidegger, Andreas; Reichert, Peter; Mauer, Max; Lienert, Judit

doi:10.1016/j.watres.2013.11.017

Cited by 92 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…In contrast to the strict dominance relationship which considers the OPSs obtained by the compared alternatives as a whole set, stochastic dominance (see Levy, 1992;Graves and Ringuest, 2009;Eisenführ et al, 2010;Scholten et al, 2014) is defined in this paper as the percentage of simulation runs in which one alternative achieves an equal or higher OPS than a compared alternative (equation (19) As above, we focus on the sentence generation for the insight-related messages here and refer to the appendix for further information related to the other messages.…”

Section: Comparison Of Outranking Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

A natural language generation approach to support understanding and traceability of multi-dimensional preferential sensitivity analysis in multi-criteria decision making

Wulf

Bertsch

2017

Expert Systems with Applications

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A natural language generation approach to support understanding and traceability of multi-dimensional preferential sensitivity analysis in multi-criteria decision making Abstract Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) enables decision makers (DM) and decision analysts (DA) to analyse and understand decision situations in a structured and formalised way. With the increasing complexity of decision support systems (DSSs), it becomes challenging for both expert and novice users to understand and interpret the model results. Natural language generation (NLG) techniques are used in various DSSs to cope with this challenge as they reduce the cognitive effort to achieve understanding of decision situations. However, NLG techniques in MCDA have so far mainly been developed for deterministic decision situations or one-dimensional sensitivity analyses. In this paper, a concept for the generation of textual explanations for a multi-dimensional preferential sensitivity analysis in MCDA is developed. The key contribution is a NLG approach that provides detailed explanations of the implications of preferential uncertainties in Multi-Attribute Value Theory (MAVT). It generates a report that assesses the influences of simultaneous or separate variations of inter-criteria and intra-criteria preferential parameters determined within the decision analysis. We explore the added value of the natural language report in an online survey. Our results show that the NLG approach is particularly beneficial for difficult interpretational tasks. IntroductionWith the aim of enabling transparent and systematic support in complex decision situations, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) represents a formalised framework for the analysis of different decision alternatives (Stewart, 1992;Geldermann et al., 2009). While such decision support approaches are aimed at providing guidance to decision makers (DMs), their increasing mathematical complexity often hinders a straightforward understanding and traceability on the part of the DMs. Consequently, a lot of cognitive effort is required in order to analyse, interpret and derive adequate implications from the obtained model results which is particularly challenging for novice users (Spiegelhalter and KnillJones, 1984;Henrion and Druzdzel, 1991;Gregor and Benbasat, 1999). DMs consider such models as a 'black box', so they mistrust or even reject them (Brans and Mareschal, 1994;Bell et al., 2003), which leads to a gap between available information on the one hand and processible information on the other hand.To compensate for this, further explanations of decision analysis results promote understanding of the decision situation and thus help to increase trust and acceptability of the 3 system (Greer et al., 1994;Greef and Neerincx, 1995;Dhaliwal and Benbasat, 1996;Gregor and Benbasat, 1999;Parikh et al., 2001;Geldermann, 2010). The use of natural language generation (NLG) techniques to generate such explanations automatically based on the model results has been proposed, for instance, by Pap...

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Section: Comparison Of Outranking Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

A natural language generation approach to support understanding and traceability of multi-dimensional preferential sensitivity analysis in multi-criteria decision making

Wulf

Bertsch

2017

Expert Systems with Applications

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“…Models are developed in our SWIP project that predict the performance and decay of water supply and wastewater systems (Egger et al 2013;Scheidegger et al 2011Scheidegger et al , 2013Scholten et al 2013Scholten et al , 2014a. We elicited stakeholder preferences in second interviews (weights, single-attribute value functions, aggregation schemes, risk attitudes) and are currently carrying out MAUT analyses (Scholten et al 2014b;Zheng et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structured decision-making for sustainable water infrastructure planning and four future scenarios

Lienert

Scholten

Egger

et al. 2015

EURO Journal on Decision Processes

Self Cite

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Water supply and wastewater infrastructures are vital for human wellbeing and environmental protection; they adhere to the highest standards, are expensive and long-lived. Because they are also aging, substantial planning is required. Climate and socio-economic change create large planning uncertainties and simple projections of past developments are no longer adequate. This paper presents the initial phases of a structured decision-making (SDM) procedure which is designed to increase the sustainability of water infrastructure planning and includes various stakeholders in an exemplary Swiss case study. We evaluate the SDM approach critically based on stakeholder feedback, give general recommendations and provide ample material to make it applicable to other settings. We carried out 27 interviews and two stakeholder workshops. We identified important objectives for water infrastructure planning, including all three sustainability pillars and their respective attributes (indicators, benchmarks) to measure how well the objectives are achieved. We then created strategic decision alternatives, including ''business-as-usual'' upgrades of the central water supply and wastewater system as well as semi-to fully decentralized alternatives. To tackle future uncertainty, we developed four socio-demographic scenarios. We used these to test the robustness of decision alternatives in a later Multi-Attribute Utility Theory analysis. Additionally, J. Lienert (&) Á L. Scholten Á C. Egger Á M. Maurer we contribute to the topical discussion of combining scenario planning with multicriteria decision analysis and demonstrate how various scenarios can stimulate creativity when generating decision alternatives. Their internal consistency is ensured by rigorously specifying them using a strategy generation table. Our SDM procedure can be adapted to inform decisions about sustainable water infrastructures in other contexts.

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“…Recent publications have explored the integration of MCDA and scenario analysis in water infrastructure planning [38] and water resource planning [39].…”

Section: Decision Makers Technical Staff and Other Stakeholdersmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Collaborative Methodology for Assessment and Management of Ecosystem Services

Segura

Álvarez

Belton

et al. 2015

Forests

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Abstract:Collaborative management is a new framework to help implement programmes in protected areas. Within this context, the aim of this work is twofold. First, to propose a robust methodology to implement collaborative management focused on ecosystem services. Second, to develop indicators for the main functions of ecosystem services. Decision makers, technical staff and other stakeholders are included in the process from the beginning, by identifying ecosystem services and eliciting preferences using the AHP method. Qualitative and quantitative data are then integrated into a PROMETHEE based method in order to obtain indicators for provisioning, maintenance and direct to citizens services. This methodology, which has been applied in a forest area, provides a tool for exploiting available technical and social data in a continuous process, as well as providing easy to understand graphical results. This approach also overcomes the difficulties found in prioritizing management objectives in a multiple criteria context with limited resources and facilitates consensus between all of the people involved. The new indicators define an innovative approach to assessing the ecosystem services from the supply perspective and provide basic information to help establish payment systems for environmental services and compensation for natural disasters. OPEN ACCESSForests 2015, 6 1697

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Strategic rehabilitation planning of piped water networks using multi-criteria decision analysis

Cited by 92 publications

References 67 publications

A natural language generation approach to support understanding and traceability of multi-dimensional preferential sensitivity analysis in multi-criteria decision making

A natural language generation approach to support understanding and traceability of multi-dimensional preferential sensitivity analysis in multi-criteria decision making

Structured decision-making for sustainable water infrastructure planning and four future scenarios

A New Collaborative Methodology for Assessment and Management of Ecosystem Services

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