Multicriteria analysis for design of microirrigation systems. Application and sensitivity analysis

This paper presents a practical application of the DSS MIRRIG for the design of a microirrigation system for a citrus orchard in Algarve (Portugal). Several alternatives were considered using different emitter types (drippers, sprayers, pressure-compensating and non-pressure compensating emitters), different pipe sizes and layouts with and without pressure regulation valves, as well as different pressure head and discharge at the upstream end of the systems. This application is described and the ranking of alternative designs is analysed using the weights given by the farmer to the hydraulic, economic and environmental criteria. An analysis of impacts resulting from selecting different weights is presented aimed at understanding the sensitivity of the model in relation to those criteria. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is performed to test the robustness of the algorithms used for ranking with respect to changes in concordance and discordance threshold values, which show that the values selected by the model are those providing for a more clear ranking of design alternatives. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.