Comparison of Several Decision-Making Techniques: A Case of Water Losses Management in Developing Countries

Abstract

Managing water losses in water supply systems has become a crucial concern. Multi criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques are efficient in this regard. A framework of prioritizing strategies to manage water losses was tested by different MCDM techniques, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and several Fuzzy AHP techniques. The modified Fuzzy AHP produced the most credible and consistent outputs. Sensitivity analysis conducted over it showed that the ranking of strategies/alternatives was sensitive to changes in weights of criteria with higher importance. This analysis demonstrates the ability of AHP and Fuzzy AHP techniques to deal with complex issues in water loss management.