Analysis for water mitigation options using MCDA: A case study in the Galapagos islands

Abstract

Lately, due to overutilization of scarce natural resources such as water, tourist islands have been severely threatened. This is also the case in Santa Cruz Island, the main inhabited island of the Galápagos Archipelago. Therefore, a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) was carried out with the aim of mitigating the future water crisis. The proposed solutions were evaluated in terms of environmental, technical, economic and social criteria. The results indicate that the 'best' alternative for municipality representatives is the option including desalination. However, for the other two groups of stakeholders, the chosen option was the one that combined all the proposed alternatives (greywater recycling, specific demand reduction and rainwater harvesting), except desalination. Conclusions show that for most stakeholders the environment is the most important criteria.

A multicriteria decision analysis for selecting rainwater harvesting systems in rural areas: a tool for developing countries

“…Regarding MCA to compare hydraulic structures, researchers such as Loc et al ( 2017 ) compared alternatives for integrated urban water management. Peters et al ( 2019 ) selected the best potable water sources, and Reyes et al ( 2018 ) compared alternatives to water mitigation. Despite the extended application of MCA in water management, only two studies were found that used this method to compare RWHS options: Hämmerling et al ( 2020 ) compared different RWHS for urban areas in Poland suburbs, and Melville-Shreeve et al ( 2016 ) selected RWHS in an urban area in a developed country.…”