Aplicació d’una anàlisi multicriteri per a l'avaluació de diferents solucions basades en la natura pel tractament d’aigua residual

Abstract

There is a popular movement of human rights organizations trying to address inequality in the distribution and use of clean water. To address this problem, new technologies are being developed as natural solutions for wastewater treatment. These natural solutions benefit the environment and, in some cases, are better than conventional wastewater treatment systems. The objective of this study is to provide a reference framework for a multi-criteria analysis. It aims to help in the development of a tool for the Catalan Water Research Institute to select the best natural technology for wastewater treatment according to user conditions. The tool uses a multi-criteria analysis to compare suitable solutions according to user conditions. This analysis is a decision-making system based on different criteria and indicators. The multi-criteria analysis consists of four phases. First, an analysis of the context and the actors involved must be carried out in order to come up with different criteria and indicators, supported by a bibliographical research of other multi-criteria analyses. The study has developed 19 indicators and 6 criteria. After setting the context and determining the indicators and criteria, a phase of formulation and quantification of the indicators begins. Once the calculations and data used to quantify the indicators have been determined, the criteria are calculated with a weighted average and different weighting scenarios are carried out. Mainly, five situations are presented where the technologies are divided by their capacity to treat different types of wastewater and in 5 scenarios are presented for each situation. The last phase is a comparison of different indicators and variables to evaluate the structure of the analysis. Once all calculations have been made, the rankings obtained are compared. An overall pattern can be observed where the best and worst rated technology in most scenarios is the same as in the reference scenarios with equal scores. This indicates the robustness of the analysis and the good development of the different criteria and indicators