Multicriteria analysis of environmental quality in Taipei: public preferences and improvement strategies

The public preferences for environmental quality should be a primary consideration of planners and decision-makers in environmental systems planning. In the first stage of multicriteria analysis, a multi-attribute evaluation model for determining public preferences is formulated. The environmental indices are defined for a comparison of environmental quality in different metropolitan districts. The public preferences of the environmental quality in Taipei are obtained using the weighted average rating method. The results indicate air quality and noise pollution as main public concern. In the second stage of multicriteria analysis, strategies are proposed to improve the air quality, and criteria are established. The experts evaluated all alternative strategies according to the criteria. The alternatives are ranked applying the compromise ranking method. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.