Comparison of decision-making approaches to prioritization of clean air action plans for sustainable development

Abstract

Background: Clean air action plans have been prepared and are still being implemented in Turkey to control and prevent air pollution, and improve the air quality. The plans reveal a picture of the current situation and available inventory information. However, in order to implement the identified plans in real life, they need to be prioritized. This study aimed to identify and prioritize clean air action plans for Turkey using a framework of both fuzzy and crisp evaluations. Methods: In this study, priorities of the plans were identified and analyzed with a decision-making model. A three-step research methodology was provided. First, literature was reviewed regarding sustainable development and action plans. Second, in order to narrow and specify action plans, the nominal group technique (NGT) was implemented. Finally, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and best-worst method (BWM) surveys were applied to environmental engineers and experts working on sustainable development to prioritize the action plans. Results: It was revealed that heating dimension is considered as the most important criterion with the weight of 0.7469 in fuzzy AHP and 0.758 in BWM. AP1 with a weight of 0.3356 in fuzzy AHP and AP3 with a weight of 0.3289 in BWM were the most important sub-criteria, which are the plans for reducing coal use ranked at the forefront in reducing air pollution. Conclusion: According to the results, there is no significant difference in the priority ranking results. The results of fuzzy AHP and BWM are very similar. For example, traffic criterion has the best performance in both methods in the evaluation of decision makers. In addition, the main and sub-criteria with the lowest priority are the same in these two methods.