Fuzzy TOPSIS for group decision making: A case study for accidents with oil spill in the sea

The selection of the best combat responses to oil spill in the sea when several alternatives have to be evaluated with different weights for each criterion consist of a multicriteria decision making (MCDM) problem. In this work, firstly the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is described. Secondly, its expansion known as fuzzy TOPSIS to handle uncertain data is presented. Next, based on fuzzy TOPSIS we propose a fuzzy TOPSIS for group decision making, which is applied to evaluate the ratings of response alternatives to a simulated oil spill. The case study was carried out for one of the largest Brazilian oil reservoirs. The results show the feasibility of the fuzzy TOPSIS framework to find out the best combat responses in case of accidents with oil spill in the sea. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.