Group decision making on water resources based on analysis of individual rankings

In problems to do with managing water resources multiple decision makers are involved, each acting in their own right and using different value systems. In the literature on management science, several procedures are proposed in order to establish a collective preference based on the aggregation of different individual preferences. However, the well-known methods that focus on a single winner have some inconveniences that should be addressed. This paper is focused on a group decision making procedure based on the analysis of individual rankings with the aim of choosing an appropriate alternative for a water resources problem. This alternative is found to be the best compromise from the points of view of all actors involved in the decision problem. The structure of the method is set out as is its application to the water resources problem. A comparison with other methods is presented and discussed.

► This paper is focused on group decision making based on the analysis of individual rankings. ► In the proposed method the problem of independence of irrelevant alternatives has been reduced. ► This method can be used to deal with many kinds of group decision making problems.