Risk analysis of water and wastewater infrastructure projects based on public-private partnership (3P) approach by combining Fuzzy Delphi (FD), FMEA and artificial fuzzy assessment (FSE) techniques

In recent years, use of Public-Private-Partnerships(3P) approach has received much attention to implementation of infrastructure projects. Risk identification and analysis in these projects has always been one of the main challenges of this approach. The purpose of this paper is to determine the different levels of risk in 3P water and wastewater projects in Iran using library studies and field surveys. Using a three-phase protocol and developing an integrated method of risk analysis, while identifying and separating risks, different levels of risk in these projects were evaluated. In the first phase, 49 risk factors were identified and divided into 6 main groups including technical(R1), economic(R2), political(R3), legal(R4), environmental(R5) and managerial(R6) risks. In the second phase, in order to extract more critical risks, the risks were analyzed and screened by combining Fuzzy Delphi(FD) techniques and Failure Mode Analysis and Effects(FMEA) using the opinions of experts. Based on the results, 23 sub-risk factors with RPNNormalized values greater than 0.5 were identified as critical risks. In the third phase, different levels of total risks(ORL) were determined by Fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) method in combination with FMEA method. Based on the results of risk groups R2, R1, R3, R4, R6 and R5 with ORL of 7.468, 7.262, 7.132, 6.992, 6.815 and 6.670, respectively, as the most critical risk groups in 3P projects were identified. Risks of allocating financial resources and investor obligations (R2-6), lack of transparency in executive issues and changes in project specifications(R1-1), problems of the government system(R3-5), prolongation of licenses and their renewal(R4-6), integrated management, control and utilization of water resources(R6-8) and climate change and rainfall pattern(R5-2) in each of the above groups were identified as the most important critical risks. Finally, the ORL of 3P projects was set at 7.077, which indicates the high level of total risk of these projects.