The weight of interaction of mining activities: groundwater in environmental impact assessment using fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP)

Aryafar, Ahmad; Yousefi, Saeed; Ardejani, Faramarz Doulati

doi:10.1007/s12665-012-1910-x

Cited by 66 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Moreover, ecological vulnerability evaluations can be combined with ecological security, pollution management, disaster resistance and insurance, and also provide a theoretical basis and reference for the development of the regional environment. Ecological vulnerability evaluation has developed rapidly in recent years, and many theories and methods have been proposed, such as the multi-index comprehensive evaluation method (Zhou et al 2011;Duguy et al 2012), the fuzzy evaluation method (Farshad et al 2013;Aryafar et al 2013), the artificial neural network evaluation method (Dzeroski 2001;Kia et al 2012), the landscape evaluation method (Kangas et al 2000;Antonio et al 2003;Salvati et al 2013), the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method (Huang et al 2010;Song et al 2010), and the principal component analysis method (Khan 2012). GIS and remote sensing technologies have become powerful tools for index acquisition and spatial distribution mapping for ecological vulnerability studies (Babiker et al 2005;Saidi et al 2010; Bagdanavičiūt_ e and Valiūnas 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methods and applications for ecological vulnerability evaluation in a hyper-arid oasis: a case study of the Turpan Oasis, China

et al. 2015

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The Turpan Oasis is a typical fragile environment that lies in an arid region of eastern Xinjiang and is affected by natural conditions and human activities. The severity of the land degradation and desertification in this area is increasing; therefore, ecological vulnerability evaluations are important for environmental management of the region. In this study, theories and methods of evaluating ecological vulnerability and the typical characteristics of ecological vulnerability were summarized. By combining the environmental characteristics of the research area and the driving factors of ecological vulnerability, a multilayer vulnerability evaluation index system was built, and a pressure-state-response model was established to evaluate the ecological vulnerability. GIS and remote sensing technologies were applied to extract each index and create a spatial distribution map of vulnerability. The results showed that the vulnerability index values ranged from 3.08 to 6.59, with an average value of 5.19. Regions with moderate vulnerability accounted for 81.85 % of the total area, whereas regions with light and serious vulnerability accounted for 4.19 and 13.95 % of the total area, respectively. Thus, more than 80 % of the area had moderate vulnerability, and nearly 14 % of the area had serious vulnerability. The degree of vulnerability increased from east to west, and the ecological vulnerability in the inner oasis was significantly lower than that in the outer oasis. The key factors for ecological restoration and reconstruction are to control desertification and to ensure ecological water use to the greatest extent.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methods and applications for ecological vulnerability evaluation in a hyper-arid oasis: a case study of the Turpan Oasis, China

et al. 2015

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“…The comprehensive index method (CIM), analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) are regarded as common methods and are widely used in multifactor synthetic EIA because they are easy to handle; however, the evaluation results are subjective in terms of weights determination (Li et al 2008;Aryafar et al 2013;Zhang et al 2014). Another multifactor synthetic EIA approach is represented by the Folchi method (Folchi 2003), which has been frequently used to simultaneously evaluate many environmental components of mining operations, i.e., human health and immunity, geological disasters, the landscape, and ecology destruction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geo-environmental impact assessment and management information system for the mining area, Northeast China

Zhang

Guo

et al. 2015

Environ Earth Sci

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The reliability and validity of mining geo-environmental impact assessment strongly depend on the availability of large volumes of high-quality investigation data and an effective evaluation methodology. Combining all the data in a coherent and logical structure supported by a computing environment helps ensure validity and availability. The study's main objectives were twofold: environmental impact assessment and the development of a managing software tool. The study identifies geo-environmental impacting factors with a relational map, evaluates geo-environmental impact degrees with a comprehensive environmental impact assessment index calculated by the Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy neural network (TSFNN) model, and classifies assessment results into three categories: slight, moderate, and heavy. Furthermore, a routine management system was developed for mining geo-environmental information managers and officials based on a client/server model and component-based Geographic Information System (GIS) secondary development technology. The system has five main capabilities: mine enterprise and geoenvironment information management, GIS map display and analysis, data querying and statistical analysis, geoenvironmental impact assessment and classification, and document query and management. To verify the software's performance, Changchun-Jilin-Tumen Economic Area in Jilin Province, Northeast China was selected for application. As validation, 96.23 % of TSFNN model evaluation results are the same as those of the Improved Analytic Hierarchy Process (IAHP) model. The results indicate that 64.15 % of the study area mine sites are moderately damaged and 7.5 % heavily damaged. The software provides an effective tool for geo-environmental information managers and can be applied by local governments for geoenvironmental impact assessment and to design sustainable development guidelines for the mining area.

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“…Deng et al [18] used fuzzy number scales with pair-wise comparisons for solving decision problems involving qualitative data very effectively in Australia. Two of the fuzzy pair-wise comparisons and FOWA were used for different water resource assessments, such as prioritizing the restoration strategies for Lake Urmia, Iran to avoid shrinkage [17], evaporation estimation [19,20], water consumption prediction [21], rainfall-runoff forecasting and modelling [22][23][24], and evaluation of groundwater pollution using GWQI [25].To assess water quality, various multivariate statistical analyses were successfully applied in many previous studies, such as groundwater modelling using the principal component analysis (PCA) technique [26][27][28]. However, PCA can only reduce the dimensionality of large data sets based on the variation of variables in the new coordinate axis and the modelling approach required detailed data [28,29].…”

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confidence: 99%

Groundwater Quality Assessment Using Fuzzy-AHP in An Giang Province of Vietnam

et al. 2019

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Along with rapid population growth in Vietnam, there is an increasing dependence on groundwater for various activities. An Giang province is known to be one of the agricultural intensification areas of The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). This study aimed to evaluate the spatiotemporal variation of groundwater quality for a period of ten years from 2009 to 2018 in An Giang. The weighted groundwater quality index (GWQI) was developed based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (Fuzzy-AHP) for assigning weighted parameters. The results show that that shallow wells in the Northeast and Southeast regions of An Giang were mostly categorized under "bad water" quality with high arsenic (As) concentration over the years partly due to huge amounts of sediment deposition in monsoon season. Overall, the reason for the poor groundwater quality in An Giang was the combined effect of both natural and human activities. On the other hand, we detected high values of GWQI links with high As concentration in areas where people extract more groundwater for irrigation. Temporal variation of GWQI suggested that groundwater quality at eight wells has improved from 2009 to 2018 in the wet season as compared to the dry season. The reason behind the improvement of groundwater quality during wet season was the decrease in river discharge, which causes less deposition of suspended solids near the flood plains. Moreover, the filling of unused wells can reduce the movement of pollutants from unused wells to groundwater aquifers. Although there was not sufficient evidence to show the relationship between As and sediment concentration, the temporal reduction trend in river discharge and suspended solids was detected in An Giang. The understanding of groundwater quality can help policymakers protect and manage limited water resources in the long-term.Geosciences 2019, 9, 330 2 of 23 of usages [6,7]. The disadvantages of the AHP method include the uncertainty and ambiguity in expressing opinions, as the method depends on the decision maker's knowledge and experiences during the decision-making process. Moreover, among other factors, the AHP method does not contain feedback loops [8].The fuzzy set was first developed by Zadeh in 1965 [5] and combined with Saaty's priority theory to reduce human ambiguity [9,10]. Later, the Fuzzy-AHP was further developed in order to overcome the uncertainty and ambiguity of criteria weights in deterministic and inflexible classifications [11]. Using the Fuzzy-AHP can provide a fuzzy number-interval judgment values rather than fixed or exact values [2]. This approach reduces uncertainty in assigned relative weight. As a result, the Fuzzy-AHP has been successfully used in many actual decision situation making such as energy alternatives selection [12,13], supplier selection [14], environmental sustainability evaluation [7], and water quality assessment [15][16][17]. Baghapour et al. [15] conducted the Fuzzy-AHP with fuzzy ordered weighted averaging (FOWA) for developing of the groundwater quality index (GWQI). They...

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The weight of interaction of mining activities: groundwater in environmental impact assessment using fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP)

Cited by 66 publications

References 33 publications

Methods and applications for ecological vulnerability evaluation in a hyper-arid oasis: a case study of the Turpan Oasis, China

Methods and applications for ecological vulnerability evaluation in a hyper-arid oasis: a case study of the Turpan Oasis, China

Geo-environmental impact assessment and management information system for the mining area, Northeast China

Groundwater Quality Assessment Using Fuzzy-AHP in An Giang Province of Vietnam

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