Selection of eco-friendly cities in Turkey via a hybrid hesitant fuzzy decision making approach

Environmental pollution can be defined as the alteration and deterioration of the natural structure and composition of the environment. Industrialization and population density in cities increase environmental pollution. Today, environmental pollution, a common problem in all countries, has reached dimensions that threaten nature and human health. In this context, this study focuses on the selection of eco-friendly cities in Turkey according to criteria such as average PM10 values at air quality measurement stations, forest area per km(2), and percentage of population receiving waste services, using the hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set (HFLTS)-based additive ratio assessment (ARAS) method. The multi-criteria HFLTS method is used to determine the weights assigned to environmental criteria. The ARAS method is used to obtain the final ranking of 81 cities in Turkey. Empirical results demonstrate that the proposed approach is viable in selecting eco-friendly cities. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.