Expert system for selecting and prioritizing projects for handling urban water supply crises

Development of a multicriteria model for crises in urban water supply and its application to the case of Brasilia, Brazil

“…The definitions of the scales of the criteria were substantiated in the work of Beinat (1997), Alegre et al (2000), Froukh (2001), Albuquerque (2004), and Brasil et al (2009, 2021), in concordance with the actors involved in the decision‐making process. The effort to make the study feasible coincides with the practical considerations of Beinat (1997), with the typical characteristics of Brazilian cities (unstructured sanitation companies, lack of human and financial resources, management deficiencies, empirical operation of water systems, and lack of data, among others, according to Silva, 2012) and supports the option of criteria scales used. Practical considerations are as follows: To formulate the scale, the Semantic Judgment method was used; as justification, there is an attempt to overcome difficulties with imprecision, according to Beinat (1997).…”

“…The research focused on the search for topics such as the water crisis in Brasilia, decision analysis, and design alternatives. The alternatives were selected based on specific methodologies (analysis of characteristics of the case study and use of tools previously developed to aid decision‐making in UWC), a decision support model (UWC‐MODEL), and an expert system (UWC‐ES), presented in Silva and Souza (2017, 2018), and include the following: Collection and use of rainwater ( A 1 ): Construction of infrastructure for capture, transport, treatment, storage, and residential use of rainwater. Collection, treatment, and use of gray water ( A 2 ): Construction of infrastructure for the collection, treatment, storage, and residential use of gray water (effluent originating from domestic activities such as washing dishes, clothes, and bathing); Consumption regulation ( A 3 ): Application of regulatory policy on consumption, for example, limitation of daily water consumption per residential unit. Strengthening the water supply system operator ( A 4 ): This alternative includes actions such as training of human resources, investments in control and automation, implementation of management and quality programs, and others. Best management practices (BMPs) for water conservation ( A 5 ): These refer to the California (USA) Urban Water Conservation Memorandum of Understanding in which the signatory water providers agreed to develop and implement comprehensive conservation BMPs using sound economic criteria and design principles.…”

“…The multicriterial tool, which is called the UWC‐MCDA, should be able to identify and prioritize, among a set of possible alternatives, the one most appropriate for the UWC case under study. The UWC‐MCDA tool is based on applying different MCDAs and their consensus to select and prioritize alternatives, which is a scientific contribution of this research (based on Poh, 1998; Silva & Souza, 2017, 2018). The set of possible alternatives should be obtained from specific methodologies or from critical analysis and consensus among the actors involved in the decision‐making process, water supply system operators, government water institutions, specialists, and the population (Silva & Souza, 2017).…”