Fuzzy MCDM approach for selecting the best environment-watershed plan

In the real word, the decision-making problems are very vague and uncertain in a number of ways. Most of the criteria have interdependent and interactive features, so they cannot be evaluated by conventional measure method. Such as the feasibility, thus, to approximate the human subjective evaluation process, it would be more suitable to apply a fuzzy method in the environment-watershed plan topic. This paper describes the design of a fuzzy decision support system in multi-criteria analysis approach for selecting the best plan alternatives or strategies in environment watershed. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) method is used to determine the preference weightings of criteria for decision makers by subjective perception (natural language). A questionnaire was used to find out from three related groups comprising 15 experts, including 5 from the university of expert scholars (include Water Resources Engineering and Conservation, Landscape and Recreation, Urban Planning, Environment Engineering, Architectural Engineering, etc.), 5 from the government departments, and 5 from industry. Subjectivity and vagueness analysis is dealt with the criteria and alternatives for selection process and simulation results by using fuzzy numbers with linguistic terms. It incorporated the decision-makers' attitude towards the preference; overall performance value of each alternative can be obtained based on the concept of fuzzy multiple-criteria decision-making (FMCDM). This research also gives an example of evaluation consisting of five alternatives, solicited from an environment-watershed plan work in Taiwan, is illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed approach. The result is useful for destination planning and the sustainability of watershed tourism resources as well. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V.