Application of Multicriteria Decision Analysis with A Priori Knowledge to Identify Optimal Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Plans
AbstractControl of agricultural nonpoint sources of pollution is achievable through implementation of conservation practices at the farm or field level. There are several approaches to achieve a targeted implementation of conservation practices at the watershed scale. Recent studies have shown that optimization methods hold great promise for optimal allocation of nonpoint source pollution control measures. However, the use of optimization is a computationally intensive task and ultimately depends upon availability of automated optimization tools and expertise to analyze the results. In this study, a novel multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework is proposed to identify a near-optimal suite of conservation practices at the watershed scale using a priori knowledge about the system. The proposed framework requires: (1) selecting a set of criteria, depending upon the objectives of the study, that should be considered in ranking the alternatives; (2) constructing an evaluation matrix; and (3) using a c...