Application of a Multi-Person and Multi-Objective Decision-Making Model in Groundwater Resources Management

The management of groundwater resources is complex, especially when decisions about the ecological environment and the social environment are considered. In addition to this, economic efficiency should be considered. The solution to these complex decision problems requires the use of mathematical techniques that are formulated to take into account conflicting objectives. With the development and application of coordinate game theory, many models based on the Nash solution exist for groundwater management systems, but there is still a gap in applying them to practical problems. In this paper, a model based on the marginal solution and the satisfaction function is adopted. In order to solve these multiperson and multi-objective decision-making problems, the arbitrating solution, which is the ideal state accepted by those parties, is first deduced by two-stage satisfying programming; and the final satisfying decision is then chosen by the close-degree principle, which is proposed using fuzzy pattern recognition. Additionally, this article uses groundwater system management in the Jinan Spring area as an example to show how the model can be applied. It is shown that this model is easy to solve and feasible to apply. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000468. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.