Fuzzy topsis as a decision-support technique for the disinfection system selection in irrigation wastewater

Resumen

The reuse of treated wastewater from wastewater treatment plants is an internationally-used practice with a large variety of applications, i.e. irrigation, urban and recreational uses, groundwater recharge, aquaculture, and industrial uses, among others. For all of these, the quality of the water should be taken into account. But it is also important to remark that the environmental and social impact derived from treated wastewater reuse is an intrinsically complex multidimensional process. Therefore, the final decision involves multiple criteria and multiple actors. On many occasions uncertain information is available on social and environmental factors so it is necessary to apply fuzzy tools to assess it. This work presents the use of multicriteria decision through the fuzzy TOPSIS method, applied to six different methodologies concerning the disinfection of treated wastewater prior to its reuse. For this purpose, a set of criteria and subcriteria through a series of pair-wise comparisons have been used with linguistic and non-linguistic information processed by the experts.