Title: Sustainable urban solid waste management planning with the use of an advanced interactive decision support system based on the PROMETHEE II method

Authors: Natalia Panagiotidou; George S. Stavrakakis; Christina Diakaki

Addresses: School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, 73100 Chania, Greece ' School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, 73100 Chania, Greece ' School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, 73100 Chania, Greece

Abstract: The fulfilment of the targets set by the European policy for sustainable waste management, imposes to the involved actors various difficulties, not only due to the inefficiencies of the existing infrastructure, but also due to the necessity for consideration of public involvement and social aspects. To assist the involved actors in planning an optimal municipal solid waste management scheme, an innovative decision support system has been developed, focusing in the Balkan Region countries. The system integrates an automated process, to assist in the formulation of alternative waste management scenarios with material flow analysis for their evaluation, and a PROMETHEE II-based multi-criteria analysis to assist in the selection of the scenario that best satisfies the preferences of the involved actors. This paper presents the structure and functionality of the decision support system, as well as an application of the system to a real case study concerning the region of Attiki, Greece.

Keywords: decision support systems; DSS; municipal solid waste; MSW; solid waste management; multicriteria decision analysis; MCDA; advanced GUIs; graphical user interfaces; urban waste management; PROMETHEE II; sustainable waste management; sustainability; Greece; material flow analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDSS.2015.070173

International Journal of Decision Support Systems, 2015 Vol.1 No.3, pp.294 - 324

Received: 07 Apr 2014
Accepted: 24 Feb 2015
Published online: 28 Jun 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article