جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « multi-criteria decision making » در نشریات گروه « آبخیزداری، بیابان، محیط زیست، مرتع »

The integration of a multi-criteria decision-making system and a geographic information system was utilized to select appropriate locations for the construction of ponds. These ponds were intended to facilitate the storage and supply of water for agricultural purposes, the breeding of warm water fish, and the artificial feeding of underground water. This initiative was implemented in the flatlands to the north of the city of Gorgan. Thus, the Boolean model was used to locate the ponds, and the Hierarchical and Copeland analysis process was used to prioritize them. Google Earth was used to determine seven suitable axes for the construction of ponds in potential areas. The Hierarchy and Copeland analysis process was used to prioritize these places based on their main and sub-criteria. The results indicated that in the comparison of criteria with a consistency coefficient (0.03), the hydrometeorological criterion with weight (0.315) and the weighted rainfall sub-criterion (0.485) is the best criterion of hydrometeorology with the consistency coefficient (0.03) and the weighted sub-criterion of the slope of the area (0.394) is the highest criterion of geomorphology with the consistency coefficient (0.03) and the loan resources sub-criterion with weight (0.410) is the highest economic and social criterion with compatibility coefficient (0.004) and the sub-criterion of plant water requirement volume with weight (0.710) is the highest agricultural criterion with compatibility coefficient (0.004) and the sub-criterion of the cost of making a water seal by weight (0.349) is the highest technical criterion of construction with the compatibility factor (0.007) has been recognized as the superior criterion. The result of this work is that by dividing the layers of information with the composition, suitable places for the construction of dams have been selected. The findings of this research showed that the use of geographic information systems and decision support systems and the use of hierarchical analysis method as a powerful and flexible tool to reduce the complexities in identifying suitable places along with field visits in increasing accuracy, reducing costs and Determination has a role Location They are the place of construction of dams.

The participation of villagers in watershed management activities has been paid attention to by the country's planners. Surveys have shown that the amount of people's participation was not as expected. This research is aimed at identifying the socio-economic characteristics of local communities, identifying indicators that are effective in reducing barriers and increasing public participation in the implementation of natural resources and watershed projects, understanding the expectations and needs of the local community, and finally providing scientific and technical solutions with the aim Increasing the amount of public participation was done in Asman Abad area of Cherdavel city.

In this research, the indicators influencing the non-participation of villagers in watershed management activities were determined and categorized based on four economic, social, design-executive and educational-promotional indicators and with 12 sub-indices. The necessary information in this research was collected in the form of a survey and using questionnaires, interviews and numerous meetings with community members and local experts. To determine the sample size from Cochran's correlation, SPSS software was used for data analysis and Cronbach's alpha was used to check the validity of the questionnaire.

The results obtained from this research showed that in the Asman-Abad watershed, economic, design and implementation indicators played a greater role in people's non-participation than educational-promotional and social indicators. From the perspective of experts, the sub-index of ignoring people's income as a direct economic incentive and not paying attention to non-governmental organizations were the most and least important in people's non-participation, respectively, with an average rating of 9.35 and 3.69. From the point of view of the local communities, the sub-indices of ignoring the people's income as a direct economic incentive and not trusting the results and effectiveness of the projects are the most and the least important, respectively, with an average rating of 8.16 and 5.23 in the non-participation of the people. they had. The general result of the survey of local communities indicated that the factors of implementing multi-purpose projects and considering the interests of watershed residents can be the basis for trust and attracting active participation of people in watershed management projects.

Conclusion and Suggestions:

In Asman Abad watershed, the prioritization of indicators affecting people's non-participation in watershed projects showed that economic and design-executive indicators played a greater role compared to educational-promotional and social indicators. Also, the results of the weights obtained from the Friedman test for ranking the sub-indices affecting people's non-participation showed that two sub-indices - ignoring the people's income as a direct economic incentive and not paying attention to the opinions and suggestions of the watershed residents in the different stages of needs assessment, design and the implementation of watershed projects, from the point of view of both groups, were in the first four priorities and were relatively more important in the non-participation of rural communities. Therefore, according to the findings of the research in order to create or improve people's participation in watershed management projects in the studied area, it is suggested that before the implementation of natural resources and watershed management projects, in relation to the existing problems, the conditions of the region and even the necessity of implementing the project Collect the points of view of the local community. Attracting the opinion of the residents of the watershed with the aim of cooperation in the implementation, protection, restoration and maintenance of projects, balanced and equal use of natural resources by the beneficiaries, appropriate use of the economic, social and technical abilities and capacities of the residents and the local community in creating and strengthening the participation of the local community is very effective Is.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relative resilience of the Samian watershed located in Ardabil province using five indicators including specific erosion and sediment, drought, flood potential, climate, and socio-economic in different weighting conditions. At the equal weighting, the average relative resilience index of Samian Watershed was 0.53, which indicates the average relative resilience. Considering the weight of each indicator at the same level in 27 different sub-watersheds of Samian, sub-watershed 8 located in the east with priority 1 had the highest relative resilience. Considering the equal weight and with emphasis on climate, flood potential and socio-economic indicators, sub-watershed 27 located in the central part of Samian Watershed was at the lowest level of relative resilience and was given priority 27 and sub-watershed 8 has been recognized as the most resilient sub-watershed. Sub-watershed 27 has been permanently in utilization due to the use of rainfed cultivation. Emphasizing erosion and sediment, and drought indicators, respectively sub-watersheds 25 and 23 located in the center of Samian Watershed were ranked in 27 priority.

Without a doubt villagers can play an effective role in improving their social, environmental and economic conditions. They also have an important and sensitive role in watershed areas and cooperation in watershed management activities. This stady aime to identify the factors affecting the indicators and sub-indicators of reducing the level of people's participation in natural resources and watershed activities, to know the expectations and needs of the local community, and finally to provide scientific and technical solutions order to increase the level of public participation in Sarabbagh region of Abdanan city. The influential indicators in this research include four economic, social, design-executive and educational-promotional indicators with 12 sub-indices determined and categorized.

This research was carried out as a survey using questionnaires, interviews and numerous meetings with community members and local experts. For this purpose, the factors affecting the non-participation of villagers in watershed management activities were identified and classified based on the literature review, questions from experts, as well as referring to the area and face-to-face interviews with residents. Then, questionnaires of paired comparisons and Likert were prepared as measuring tools and the relibility of the questionnaires was confirmed based on experts' opinions. Finally, after determining the sample size by Cochran's formula and completing the questionnaires, using the fuzzy AHP and the Friedman test, the indicators and sub-indices affecting the lack of sustainable participation of the people in the watershed management plans of the investigated catchment were prioritized. SPSS software was used for data analysis and Cronbach's alpha was used to check the validity of the questionnaire.

Based on the history of investigation in the study area and similar areas, unfortunately, the evidence indicates that most local communities do not know about the implementation and exploitation of watershed projects and natural resources in their living and production areas. The field surveys conducted in the study area showed that from the point of view of experts and local communities, the economic factor is the most important factor in the non-participation of local communities in watershed management activities. In Sarabbagh catchment, economic, design and implementation indicators play a greater role in people's non-participation than educational, promotional and social indicators. From the point of view of the experts, the sub-index of ignoring people's income as a direct economic incentive and not paying attention to non-governmental organizations have the maximum and minimum importance in people's non-participation, respectively, with an average rank of 9.35 and 3.69. From the point of view of the local communities, the sub-indices of ignoring people's income as a direct economic incentive and not paying attention to non-governmental organizations have the maximum and minimum importance in the non-participation of the people, respectively, with an average rank of 9.02 and 4.68

In general, one of the most important measures that can be taken in order to remove the obstacles to the participation of local communities in watershed projects is to identify, categorize and rank the factors that cause their non-participation in these projects. Prioritizing the factors affecting people's non-participation is a fundamental step in the cycle of people's management of watersheds and proper management of watersheds. The general result of the survey of local communities indicates that participatory management increases the capabilities and optimal productivity of other facilities and resources in the catchment. Implementation of multi-purpose watershed projects and taking into account the interests of the watershed residents, as well as the participation of local communities in the various stages of monitoring, studies, needs assessment, implementation, and maintenance of watershed projects can cause economic motivation, attention to the local force in the implementation of projects, employment, and active participation of the people in the mentioned stages. Attention and emphasis on the issue of trust of the local community and increasing the amount of social trust in the General Administration of Natural Resources and Watershed Management are among the factors that can reduce or eliminate the obstacles of non-participation of the local community in the implementation and exploitation of watershed and natural resources projects.

Floods are one of the most important natural disasters that cause the most damage to infrastructure sectors and greatly affect people's economic and social activities. The occurrence of this phenomenon cannot be prevented, but by taking measures, its effects can be reduced to a great extent. One of the management methods to reduce damage caused by floods is to identify vulnerable areas. The purpose of this research is to determine the vulnerable areas of Tajen watershed using a new approach.

Therefore, in this study, with the aim of identifying flood vulnerable areas in four economic, socio-cultural, structural-physical and policy-institutional dimensions, the "Best of the Worst Method (BWM)" which is based on linear planning, for Index weighting was used. In order to rank the criteria, Friedman test was used. The statistical population of the study is the villages at risk of flooding in Tajan watershed in Mazandaran province. To do this, 208 questionnaires were randomly completed by residents of 40 villages. In this study, in order to analyze the questionnaires and implement the BWM method, SPSS16 software and Lingo18 optimization model were used, respectively.

The results of Friedman statistical test showed that there was a significant difference (Sig = 0.00) between the criteria studied in this study. The economic criterion with a rank of 2.85 has the highest importance compared to the other three criteria. Also, the results of weighting the indicators using the BWM method, which are based on the preference of the best and the worst, also showed that in the economic dimension of the agricultural income dependence index (0.284), in the structural-physical dimension of the index, there are appropriate communication channels (road and bright) (0.243), in the policy dimension, the index of destruction of natural resources (0.379) and in the socio-cultural dimension, the index of access to health centers (0.391) have the highest weight and have a great impact on vulnerability in terms of respondents. Residents are flooded. Also, in this study, the value of incompatibility index was less than 0.1, which indicates the good accuracy of the BWM model in weighting vulnerability indices.

In order to reduce costs and reduce the complexity caused by the large number of criteria and sub-criteria affecting the vulnerability of an area to floods, the use of new multi-criteria decision-making methods based on linear programming is emphasized.

People's participation in watershed development projects is an important factor in their success or failure. Therefore, in any watershed, it is necessary to identify the factors affecting the weakness of public participation. Previous studies have rarely analyzed the factors preventing people's participation. One of the most important measures that can be taken to remove barriers to the participation of local communities in watershed management projects (biological, mechanical, biomechanical, and managerial operations) is to identify, categorize and rank the factors that weaken their participation in these projects. The purpose of this study was to identify and prioritize these factors in the Ninehroud watershed of Qazvin province. A comparison was also made between the views of experts and the local community's viewpoints on the importance of these factors.

Ninehrood watershed with an area of ​​12,336 hectares is located 30 km northeast of Qazvin. Detailed-executive studies of this watershed were approved by the technical committee of the Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization of Qazvin province in 2006 and various biological, mechanical, biomechanical, and managerial projects were implemented during the years 2009 to 2016. Identifying the factors affecting the weakness of public participation in the watershed management projects was done based on questions from experts, visits to the area, and face-to-face interviews with residents, as well as previous studies. These factors were classified into four managerial, economic, social, and educational-promotional categories which totally include 18 sub-indicators. In this study, the data collection tool was two types of questionnaires including pairwise comparisons and Likert scale questionnaires were designed and their validity was confirmed by a group of experts. In order to know the views of local communities about the importance of these factors, according to Cochran's formula, 298 samples were selected from 1323 household heads in the watershed, and questionnaires were completed. To find out the views of experts on the importance of these factors, questionnaires were also completed by 19 experts. The reliability of the questionnaires was assessed by Cronbach's alpha test. Then, the FAHP technique and Friedman test were applied respectively to prioritize the indicators and sub-indices preventing public participation in watershed management projects.

The results showed that from the perspective of both groups, managerial and economic indicators had a greater role in weak public participation than social and educational-promotional indicators. The results also indicated some differences in the importance of the sub-indices from the perspective of the two groups. From the experts' perspective, "lack of full allocation of operating funds on time" and "local and tribal disputes" with an average rank of 13.72 and 7.03 had the most and least importance respectively. This is while the watershed residents have introduced "Non-matching of proposed projects with their needs" and "lack of full allocation of operating funds on time" with an average rank of 14.96 and 3.98 as the most and the least important sub-indicators respectively. From the perspective of both groups, three sub-indicators including the lack of multipurpose projects design, the concentration of decision-making power at headquarters, and the lack of employing local laborers in project implementation (Employment), were also ranked as the first six priorities which have had more role in the weak participation of people.

In general, the results of this study showed some similarities in the views of the two groups on some of the participation barriers, but in some cases, there were significant differences. Therefore, group decision-making with the presence of local communities on watershed management projects is proposed as a way to converge the views of these two groups.

Effective and less expensive implementation of plans, protection of projects, and future restoration of structures require the participation of stakeholders in all stages of study, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and maintenance. Therefore, identifying and classifying indicators and sub-indices that affect people's participation and promoting them in the implementation of watershed and aquifer projects is very important. To this end, the objective of this research is to comparative evaluation of factors affecting people's non-participation from the point of view of watershed residents and also experts in the Asadli Watershed, Bojnord. In this research, factors affecting people's non-participation in watershed projects were classified in the form of four economic, social, education-extension, and design-implementation indicators and 15 sub-indices. In the following, from the point of view of experts (19 people) and stakeholders (31 people), the indicators and sub-indices affecting people's non-participation in watershed management projects were prioritized using the Fuzzy Hierarchical Analysis Process (FHAP) and the Friedman Test. The reliability measurement of the questionnaire was determined via Cronbach's alpha test. The obtained Cronbach's alpha value (= α 0.752) showed that the measuring tool (questionnaire) has good reliability. The results showed that from the point of view of experts and stakeholders, economic indicators and design-implementation have a greater role in people's non-participation than other indicators in the region under investigation. Experts and local societies were of the same opinion regarding the factors affecting non-participation in watershed projects in some cases, including in the field of "tribe and local people differences", "impossibility of issuing exploitation rights", "lack of indigenous knowledge of local people in the field of watershed management", and ”late return of watershed projects". A noteworthy point is the relative importance of the sub-index "lack of attention to local forces in the implementation of the project" from the point of view of both groups (rank 4 and 5 according to local societies and experts, respectively). The ranking results of the sub-indices from the perspective of experts and rural societies showed that the "lack of specific laws to support people's participation in watershed management projects" is the most important and also the sub-index "concentration of decision-making power in the center" is of great importance. However, the biggest difference in the importance of the factors from the perspective of two groups of experts and local communities is related to the sub-indices of "ignoring people's interests as a direct economic incentive" and” lack of consultation with local societies in project needs assessment".

Land use priority assessment is the principal basis of land use planning and management. It is a kind of decision-making with several criteria that sometimes contradict each other. This is why multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods have in recent years found wide applications in solving land suitability assessment problems. The objective of this study was to introduce the Best-Worst Method (BWM) and its application in determining the suitability of land for agricultural crop production. Furthermore, the results obtained were compared with those reported in previous studies that had employed the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) as the most widely used multi-criteria decision-making method. For this purpose, soil profile samples were taken from 12 orchards under date cultivation in Jahrom region, Fars Province and subjected to the necessary physicochemical analyses to identify the soil properties affecting crop yield. Once the soil and yield data matrices had been prepared, the BWM and AHP methods were used to determine the weight of each criterion. Land suitability index was subsequently obtained for each garden as the sum of the products of the standardized value of each soil property by its weight. The indices thus obtained were compared with the corresponding actual crop yield to determine the performance of the models employed. Although the results indicated almost identical index values from both methods, the evaluation criteria of minimum violation, total deviation, and conformity revealed more consistent BWM judgments. It was finally concluded that BWM could be recommended as a more reliable and efficient method for solving multi-criteria decision-making problems as required in land use management owing to its varied advantages such as the need for fewer pairwise comparisons compared to other matrix-based MCDM methods like AHP, more consistent and compatible weights ultimately derived in the decision-making problem, the possibility for its application simultaneously with other methods, the use of integers in comparisons, and ease of application.

The degree of public participation in watershed management programs is a major determinant of success or failure of the programs, but the factors which make people participate still remain unknown. The main objects of current study are comparison evaluation of effective factors on preventing participation of rural societies in watershed management plans based on all people and experts’ viewpoints in Emarat Watershed of Khorasan Razavi Province. In the current study the effective factors on preventing participation of rural societies were classify in four classes include "economic", "educational-extension", "design-executive" and "social" indicators and 14 sub-indicators. Then the indicators and sub-indicators were prioritized using Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process and Friedman Test. Finally, the two-sample Kolmogrov–Smirnov Test was also used to examine the agreement of the two views on the importance of the items. The results showed that, from the perspective of both groups of experts and peoples, economic indicator has a greater role in preventing people participation in relation to other indicators. The results of sub-indicators prioritization based on local people and expert’s viewpoints showed that “ignoring people´s income as a direct economic motivation” and “shortage of education of watershed residents about plants and their purposes”, respectively, were ranked as the most important sub-indices. The most important difference of the sub-indices from the perspective of local people and expert are related to the “ignoring people´s income as a direct economic motivation” and “lack of stakeholder’s consultation in the design and development of projects”. The overall conclusion is that considering the benefits of stakeholders, and multi-purpose projects and factors such as stakeholder consultation, and training of local communities can provide the basis participation of people in the watershed development projects.

As desertification is growing rapidly, adopting appropriate managerial strategies could help reduce its extension and prevent its development and spread. Otherwise, the loss of resources such as time, energy, etc., would bring about destructive consequences for the efforts made to combat desertification. On the other hand, the process of land desertification results from the interactions between various factors that always operate under uncertain conditions, being strongly influenced by vague and implicit judgments. However, no comprehensive method has been introduced yet to offer operational and reliable solutions for evaluating the strategies used for combating desertification based on a systematic collective fuzzy approach. Therefore, this study sought to combine the fuzzy theory with multi-criteria decision-making methods to evaluate the strategies used in combating desertification, using the Fuzzy DEMATEL method.

The fuzzy DEMATEL technique is a comprehensive method for creating and analyzing a structural model made out of causal relationships between a variety of complex factors under uncertain conditions. Accordingly, after determining the prioritized criteria and strategies via the fuzzy Delphi method and creating a fuzzy mean pair-wise comparison matrix, the matrix was changed to the normalized initial direct-relation matrix  according to equation 1:xij=zijr=lijr,mijr,uijr  (1) Then the mass communication matrix was formed by Eq. 2 (Table 1), showing the relative effect of direct and indirect relationships in a system.T=limk→∞X+X2+…+XK(2) Table (1): Fuzzy Mass Communication Matrix Di     D1 t k1nk-1… t k12 t K11 Tij = D2    t k2nk-1… t k22 t k21 ׃ ׃ ׃ ׃ ׃ Dn t knknk-1… t knk2 t knk1 Rn… R2 R1 Ri tij=lij",mij",uij" In the fuzzy mass communication matrix, the sum line (Di) indicates the extent of that factor's influence on other system's factors and its corresponding sum column (Ri) suggests the intensity of the influence of other system's factors on that factor. Therefore, Di+Ri  determines the total mutual impact of the desired factor and other system's factors on each other, and Di-Ri  shows the extent of each factor's final effect (only the effect) on all other system's factors. Then, the Di+Ri  and Di-Ri  were de-fuzzed according to Eq.3 to facilitate the analysis of the findings. (3)   BNP=lij+uij-lij+mij-lij3  Finally, a causal diagram (cause and effect) including a Cartesian coordinate system was drawn, with its horizontal and vertical axes being graded based on Di+Ridef  and Di-Ridef  values, respectively. Di+Ridef is the total de-fuzzed cause and effect, and Di-Ridef is the extent of the de-fuzzed effect. Moreover, the position of each existing strategy was determined within the system according to a point whose coordinates were (A: Di+Ridef , Di-Ridef). In this system, the points above the horizontal line indicate the effect strategies and vice versa, and the points to the right of the vertical line suggest the cause strategies and vice versa (Fig. 1). Figure (1): The causal diagram and the display of strategies

According to the related literature, first, the matrix of the order of criteria's influence on each other, and the matrices of the order of strategies' influence on each other were created in terms of the goal and each criterion, respectively, finding that that the effective strategies differed based on each criterion. Therefore, to select final strategies and grade their impact, the matrix of the order of strategies' influence on each other was formed in terms of total criteria within the group. Table (2): The matrix of the order of influence of strategies on each other in terms of total criteria Di-Ridef Di+Ridef Di-Ri Di+Ri Di    Ri Alternatives -1.252 -0.098 -1.887, -0.956, -0.912 -0.480, -0.31, 0.496 -0.625, -0.633, -0.767 0.145, 0.323, 1.262 A23 1.646 0.903 1.110, 1.515, 2.313 0.406, 0.695, 1.607 0.776, 1.105, 1.942 -0.371, -0.410, -0.335 A18 -1.011 -0.444 -0.548, 1.058, -1.427 -0.075, -0.305, -0.954 -0.421, -0.681, -1.081 0.346, 0.376, 0.127 A33 -0.271 -0.078 -0.186, -0.264, -0.364 0.034, -0.123, -0.145 -0.121, -0.194, -0.209 0.155, 0.070, 0.064 A20 0.889 0.367 0.480, 0.763, 1.421 -0.019, 0.197, 0.922 0.324, 0.480, 1.078 -0.343, -0.283, -0.156 A31 Finally, the causal diagram (cause and effect) was drawn based on Table 2 (Fig. 2) to better interpret the results. Figure (2): The diagram of cause and effect (causal) strategies to combat desertification based on total criteria.

According to the study's results, "appropriateness and compatibility with the environment" (C7) with the intensity effect of Di-Ridef=0.874  were the most important criteria based on the Fuzzy DEMATEL perspective, followed by "Destruction of resources, and environmental and human damages" (C16), "Specialized human resources" (C6), "Scientific and technological tools" (C5), and "time”, with their effect intensity  Di-Ridef being 0.802 , -132 , -630, and -0.914, respectively, indicating the experts' concerns for the environmental issues and the existing challenges in terms of the destruction of the environment. Based on the above-mentioned criteria, "preventing inappropriate land-use change" (A18) with the intensity effect of Di+Ridef=0.903  is definitely the most effective strategy to achieve the goal. Moreover, in terms of increasing cause and decreasing effect, other strategies were found to be "Reduction in extracting water from groundwater resources"(A31), " Controlling livestock grazing "(A20), "Developing and restoring the vegetation" (A23), "Changing the irrigation pattern and implementing less water-consuming methods "(A33), whose intensity effect Di+Ridefwas 0.903 , -0.078, -0.098 , and -0.444, respectively . Therefore, it is suggested that the results of this study be considered in the plans devised to control and reduce the consequences of desertification and land restoration in the study area. In fact, the current study's findings enable the managers working in desert areas to use limited facilities and assets available to them to effectively control the desertification process, prevent the loss of national assets, and achieve better results.

Increasing the number of water quality monitoring stations and conducting multiple sampling is one of the measures to improve the productivity of river water quality control operations. The figures must be determined by scientific methods so that the system dynamism can be explained. Increasing rivers pollution, which sometimes oversteps the self-purification limitation of the rivers, causes great damage to the environment. In the present study, while modeling the behavior of the river in the conditions of effluent entry whether point or non-point, multiple criteria decision-making method (AHP) was conducted to prioritize monitoring operations at river stations. For this purpose, the Gedarchay River was chosen as a case study. Based on the WQI results, water quality parameters rose alongside the river with rural sewer flowing. As such, stations 7 and 8 in scenario I showed moderate quality due to increased pollution loading while other stations and by extension the other scenarios indicated good to excellent figures. Considering water quality monitoring operations (), the existing stations were prioritized. The weights of the main criteria were determined as follows C1 = 0.483, C2 = 0.157, C3 = 0.272 and C4 = 0.088, and the stations 1-8 were weighted respectively 5.1, 7.9, 8.6, 16.6, 16.3, 17.5, 16.2 and 12.0, confirming the importance of station 6 in getting prioritized.

One of the common and growing perspectives on achieving sustainability is to formulate its indicators based on local data alongside with a guided and experimental approach. On this basis, designing and prioritization of rangeland sustainability indicators from the experts perspectives in the nomadic rangelands of Kham Namdan in Eghlid county, Robat Sarvestan and Dogush Naderi of Khanj county were done. These three regions were considered as the representatives of seasonal nomadic rangelands, cold, temperate and warm, of Fars province, respectively. In this study, multivariate decision-making methods, fuzzy Delphi, hierarchical analysis (AHP) and TOPSIS method were used. The questionnaire criteria were divided into four categoris: climate and meteorology, crop production, soil and anthropogenic. Analysis of the results at the level of indices showed that anthropogenic and soil indices with a weight of 0.480 and 0.330 were the highest, respectively, and crop production and climate and hydrological indices with relative weights of 0.134 and 0.056 were fallen in the next rank. At the level of options or criteria, all unapproved options were related to the anthropogenic index, while in the indicators of climate and hydrology, crop production and soil, all options were approved by experts. Paired comparison of the options also shows that the options of income and capital, ownership and types of visible soil erosion with relative weights of 0.16, 0.13 and 0.11 have the highest priority. On the contrary, for drought index, average annual temperature and access to alternative forage with relative weights less than 0.005 have the lowest priority. The results of TOPSIS method showed that options: finance (income, savings, loans and insurance), ownership (land, livestock, housing and car) and types of erosion are superior to other options.

Desertification is the process of ecological and biological reduction of land potential in a natural or unnatural way, mainly affecting arid regions. Moreover, it decreases land efficiency with increasing acceleration. Land resources and human populations exposed to desertification and land destruction are prone to various threats, including loss of land productivity, food insecurity, water scarcity, economic problems, social deprivation, and health risks. Therefore, the complex and important dimensions of this issue prompted the international community to state at the Rio Environment and Development Conference that one of the goals of sustainable development is to fight against desertification, and to stop and reverse land degradation.   Subsequently, the important role of appropriate and appropriate local measures in dealing with global threats, desertification, and land degradation was emphasized at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Therefore, considering the limited resources and inputs, the sensitivity of ecosystems in desert areas, increasing success in implementing control plans and reducing the effects of desertification and restoration of destroyed lands, today the evaluation of desertification alternatives is considered as a determining factor in executive projects. Thus, it is necessary to design optimal methods for controlling and reducing this process. Therefore, this case study which was carried out in the Ardekan-Khezrabad plain sought to systematically evaluate optimal alternatives via a group decision model.  

To analyze and present effective alternatives, this study used Delphi method within the framework of multi-criteria decision-making method so that it can consolidate group opinions and use a pairwise comparison questionnaire, followed by a qualitative identification of the most important and prioritized criteria and alternatives. Then the significance of the criteria was estimated via special vector method. Finally, Bernardochr('39')s decision-making method was applied to finalize the alternatives and prioritize them. In the framework of this model, a ranking/criterion matrix was formed for each strategy in order to influence the weight of criteria in the selection of alternatives. The weights of the criteria were multiplied in these matrices based on the relation (1), and an agreement line matrix was formed for each strategy.  (1)  Then, the consensus matrix of the total alternatives was created from the sum of the consecutive line matrices of each strategy. After the formation of the agreement matrix, the total number of times that each strategy ranked in position 1 to k was estimated in the form of a compression agreement matrix according to the relationship 2. (2)     Finally, after influencing the weights of the criteria in the alternatives in the form of a consensual consensus matrix and the formation of an allocation model (Equation 3) for each strategy, the models were solved and the final priority of the alternatives was determined, using Lingo software.    (3)

According to the research literature, the importance of criteria in the desertification process was estimated from a special vector method. The results showed that the criteria of "Proportionality and compatibility with environment" (C7) was at the highest level of importance with a coefficient significance of 0.33877, followed by  "Destruction of Resources and Environmental and Human Damages" (C16) with a coefficient significance of 0.3111, "Expert Human Resources" (C6) with a coefficient significance of 0.1571, " Scientific tools and technology available" (C5) with a coefficient significance of 0.1039, and "time" (C2) with a coefficient significance of 0.9090, respectively, indicating the attention of experts and specialists to environmental issues and challenges in the field of environmental degradation. In general, according to the results of the final prioritization of alternatives, the highest value of the objective functions was found to be 6.7. Therefore, "Prevention of unsuitable land-use changes" (A18), "Modification of groundwater harvesting" (A31), and "Vegetation cover development and reclamation" (A23) were selected as the most appropriate subsets of current alternatives.  

The results of the application of the final prioritization of alternatives based on Bernardochr('39')s method showed that this method was catheterized by flexibility, high efficiency, ease of use, the possibility of using software such as Lingo and EC, and evaluation of alternatives based on a set of effective quantitative and quantitative criteria in-group format. In addition to using multiple criteria for decision making, it considers resource constraints in implementing alternatives or projects, providing an opportunity for decision-makers in the field of natural resources to use the limited facilities and capital allocated to control the desertification process in the right and efficient ways for better results while preventing the waste of national capital.

Peoples’ participation in watershed development projects, in addition to reducing operating costs, can lead to more effective project implementation. Various factors causes the lack of public participation in watershed development projects. The purpose of this study was to identify, classify and prioritize these factors based on local people as well as experts viewpoints in Niarij watershed of Qazvin province. So first, these factors were identified and categorized based on the previous studies, interviews with experts, and residents and stakeholders of the watershed. Then,  pairwise comparisons and likert questionnaires were prepared as a measuring tool and the validity of the questionnaires was confirmed based on the opinions of the experts. In the next step, the sample size was determined by Cochran formula and the questionnaires were completed. Finally, the indicators and sub-indicators which preventing the participation of the people were prioritized using Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process and Friedman Test. The results showed that, from the perspective of both groups of experts and peoples, management and economic indicators have a greater role in preventing people participation in relation to social and educational indicators. The results were also indicated some differences in the importance of the sub-indices from the perspective of the two groups. From the expertschr('39') perspective, "lack of full allocation of operating funds on time" and "local and tribal disputes" are the most and least important, respectively. But from the local communities point of view, the sub-indices " lack of stakeholders consultation in the design and development of projects" and "mistrust about the benefits of projects " are ranked as the most and least important, respectively. The overall conclusion is that factors such as stakeholder consultation, decentralization of decision-making from the headquarters, NGOs activities and training of local communities along with the considering the benefits of stakeholders, and multi-purpose projects can provide the basis for local peoples’ trust and will result in participation of people in the watershed development projects.

One of the serious challenges in inter-basin water transfer plans is the existence of various complex which, due to their different roles and effectiveness in implementation, have caused many problems in the environmental, economical, cultural, social, technical fields.Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify and prioritize effective consequences in inter basin water transfer plans using the opinions of 41 experts and specialize expert faculty members in this field. In this regard, a researcher-made questionnaire was used to identify the effective and important consequences of inter-basin water transfer plans from three environmental, economic and social perspectives and the entropy technique was used to calculate their weight. In the following, the preferential technique based on similarity with the ideal solution (TOPSIS) was used to prioritize of effective consequences. The analysis of the findings of this study by completing the questionnaire identified 29 consequences (indicator) from environmental, economic, social aspects for inter-basin water transmission projects, including 9 ecological consequence, 7 economic consequence and 13 social consequence for evaluating inter basin water transfer plans. The results of weighing the consequences using the Entropy technique showed that the sociol consequence with weight (0.44744), environmental consequence with weight (0.31102) and economic consequence with weight (0.24153) among the consequences. From the environmental point of view of the destruction of swamp and wetland life downstream of the orgine watersheds consequence with weight (0.034655), economically point of view of heavy structural cost (pumping station, tunneling and piping, desalination, etc.) with weight (0.03462) consequences and socially the consequence of protests, disputes, social, ethnic conflicts, and discrimination in a society with weight (0.03465) have the highest weight among other consequences respectively. The overall results of this study indicated that the positive and negative consequences of inter-basin water transfer schemes must be considered by the water-related organization to monitor and maintain the sustainability of natural ecosystems and achieve sustainable development goals.

Controlling and managing of seasonal and sudden floods in arid and semi-arid regions, especially in areas where surface water is out of reach is necessary. Flood spreading is one of the best ways to control surface runoff and recharge groundwater resources. In the present study, the appropriate sites for flood spreading project in border area of Taybad county in Khorasan Razavi province is selected using Boolean logic .For prioritization the suitable locations, TOPSIS and VIKOR multi-criteria decision making methods were used. Firstly, using Boolean logic inappropriate areas based were removed on criteria (slopes greater than 8%, urban area, agriculture and covered pediment). Then, 11 zones were selected as the suitable areas of using TOPSIS and VIKOR models based on the criteria  of slope, groundwater quality, geology, alluvium thickness, transmission capability, drainage density, surface permeability, groundwater loss, distance from the village, distance from wells and land use.. Results showed that most suitable areas are located in alluvial fans. Based on the TOPSIS model, location J with value of 0.75 was selected as the best site, and using the VIKOR model, location K with a value of 0.96 was selected as the best location for flood spreading projects.

Flood is one of the natural hazards that causes numerous financial and life damages each year. Therefore, flood potential prioritizing is crucial to reduce the damages caused by it. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in flood potential prioritizing of Barajin sub-catchments. So, flood potential of sub-catchments was determined using AHP and the results are compared with the outputs of the HEC-HMS model as observed data. The results showed that in addition to full compliance of the two maps, there is a significant correlation (0.9299 and 0.934) between flooding potential ranks and peak flood discharge ranks with the return periods of 25 and 50 years of sub-catchments. The weights of AHP were also showed that in the flood of sub-catchments, generally, hydro-climatic criteria (weight = 0.65) is more important than morphometric criteria (weight = 0.35); and the rainfall intensity is the most important sub-criteria (weight = 0.373). Based on the final ranking, sub-catchments of 5, 3, and 4 that are located in upland and mountainous areas, have high flood potential due to the high weight of tow sub-criteria, one rainfall intensity, and the other 25-years rainfall. The results of this study could be a good guide for controlling floods of the study area in addition to understanding the processes governing the watershed.

The present study has been carried out aiming at suitable site selection for rainwater harvesting across the northern rangelands of the Aq Qala district to supply drinking water for grazing livestocks using the effective criteria and multi-criteria decision support system. The rainwater harvesting suitability map was created by integrating the multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) technique and standardization (fuzzification) of continuous raster data within ArcGIS. To determine the suitable rainwater harvesting areas, the weighted linear combination (WLC) was applied in the range of 0 to 1 using the multi-criteri evaluation (MCE) within the ArcGIS and and the data of various criteria including distance to water source, distance to cattle post, stocking density, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), distance to road, slope percentage, distance to settlement and soil texture. The result indicated that about 2950 ha (~5.2%) of the study area have a good suitability for implementation of rainwater harvesting systems to supply water for grazing livestocks. The results of questionnaire survey revealed that about 70% of 107 stakeholders of the rangelands are highly willing to install and utilize rainwater harvesting systems, but high cost of installing is considered the main hinderance.

Nowadays, the municipal solid waste landfill is one of the major disposal methods used in many countries of the world including Iran. Like any other engineering projects, landfill site selection requires precise information and clear planning. Considering various factors involved in selecting a suitable place for a landfill and the extensive connections between them, experts are, thus, led to a system like GIS that measures different impacts of those factors and analyzes their mutual relationships with sufficient accuracy and speed. As a decision-making model, GIS is capable of managing and organizing various environmental criteria and manage the relevant collected data (Chitazan et al., 2013). From among the multiple decision-making methods, AHP is applied in management science (Mokhtari et al., 2015). Another model is the Topics Fuzzy method which is based on the selection of an option that has the minimum distance with the ideal positive solution and the maximum distance with the ideal negative solution. another model is the ordered weighted average (OWA) which is also another decision-making issue and a risk-taker and risk-avoider method in which a risk-taker emphasizes the good and bad properties of an option, and a risk-avoider emphasizes its bad properties (Yager, 1988).

Kashan is the second largest city of Isfahan province with an area of 4,392 km2 and a population of 364482 people. By studying environmental and health guidelines as well as the status of the target area, 12 effective criteria were identified for landfill site location (Sydikai et al., 1996 and Gyor Salanguch, 2012). Due to the incompatibility of factors, standardization was carried out by the fuzzy method. To determine the significance of the factors (weight), the criteria were compared with each other. Each score was also scored from 1 to 9 and weights were calculated via Expert Choice software. (Rajabi et al., 2011). Then, the OWA method was used to overlay the effective criteria. The weighted average method is a sequence of multivariate functions which consists of two groups: standard weights and ordered weights. Subsequently, to prioritize suitable sites, they were ranked by the fuzzy TOPSIS method concerning the fourth scenario as an example. The basis of the fuzzy TOPSIS method is to choose an option that has the least distance from the ideal positive solution and the maximum distance from the ideal negative one (Asgharpour, 2006; Moeineddin et al., 2010). Finally, the proximity coefficient of each option is obtained by considering the positive and negative ideal points according to the following equation: 

By studying environmental and health guidelines as well as the status of the target area, a suitable landfill site was selected and determined according to their 12 effective criteria. The weights assigned to each of the criteria effective in locating was calculated by the AHP method. These weights showed that groundwater depth and distance from wells and springs and agricultural areas are the most important criteria and distance from roads industrial areas have are the least important criteria in locating solid waste landfills in Kashan, respectively. After standardizing the information layers according to fuzzy logic, the OWA method was used to choice choose the appropriate landfill sites according to seven scenarios with different degrees of risk. Prioritization of the three suitable locations based on the fourth scenario corresponding to the weighted linear combination was done through the fuzzy TOPSIS method. The results showed the preference of site three over the other two ones. The final location map was based on different scenarios and in this study, the fuzzy TOPSIS method was used to rank the appropriate areas. In this study, the ranking of suitable areas was considered in the fourth scenario, which corresponds to the linear combination method.

The importance of groundwater depth and distance from wells and spring compared to other factors indicate the possible role of landfills in the contamination of water resources. In this study, the weighted averaging method was used to select the appropriate landfill for solid wastes. One of the most important features of this method is its degree of risk-taking which has a high ability to solve complex decision-making problems. In addition to its ability in identifying suitable locations for sanitary landfills, the OWA method also prioritizes options with varying degrees of risk. The methods used in this study could be applied to similar cases that need to be decided on environmental issues and water resources, but it should be noted that the criteria and their boundaries are influenced by problems and conditions in each area. Also, the existence of suitable locations for the sanitary landfill in Kashan is a good opportunity for the municipality or related entities to consider landfilling of solid waste in these areas, taking into account their social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental conditions, while taking action to avoid the current complications of solid waste.