Jorge Curiel-Esparza

Hydrological restoration of wetlands has become a critical pressing issue in environmental preservation due to climate change. This study seeks to develop a novel methodology to identify which type of water resources available are the most appropriate for restoring a particular wetland, considering a holistic perspective based on the triple bottom line (TBL) assessment, which is a logical framework for identifying and integrating social, environmental, and economic factors into decision-making processes. The elicitation was addressed through a comprehensive holistic index using analytic hierarchy process for ranking TBL dimensions and drivers. This new hybrid technique was applied for elaborating sustainable rules of water allocation to restore the wetlands of the Tablas de Daimiel National Park, located in central Spain. The environmental dimension was analyzed using six drivers: the synergistic use of infrastructures, the water resources location, the wastewater reuse, the energy consumption, the landscape degradation, and the impact on water resources. The social dimension was evaluated measuring three drivers: community acceptance, political acceptance, and market acceptance. And finally, the economic dimension was assessed through the expropriation of land costs, the infrastructure costs, the maintenance costs, and opportunity costs associated. These drivers guarantee traceability and transparency in the elicitation process, becoming a novel allocation framework to support policy makers in wetland conservation. Applying the proposed methodology, Tagus-Segura interbasin water transfer is the best ranked option (83.13%), closely followed by pumping well areas (79.12 and 78.24%) and wastewater recycling plants (74.34 and 68.26%). The unique holistic index proposed is a transparent and traceable decision support tool to address water allocation in wetland restoration.

The selection of appropriate species in a reforestation project has always been a complex decisionmaking problem in which, due mostly to government policies and other stakeholders, not only economic criteria but also other environmental issues interact. Climate change has not usually been taken into account in traditional reforestation decision-making strategies and management procedures. Moreover, there is a lack of agreement on the percentage of each one of the species in reforestation planning, which is usually calculated in a discretionary way. In this context, an effective multicriteria technique has been developed in order to improve the process of selecting species for reforestation in the Mediterranean region of Spain. A hybrid Delphi-AHP methodology is proposed, which includes a consistency analysis in order to reduce random choices. As a result, this technique provides an optimal percentage distribution of the appropriate species to be used in reforestation planning. The highest values of the weight given for each subcriteria corresponded to FR (fire forest response) and PR (pests and diseases risk), because of the increasing importance of the impact of climate change in the forest. However, CB (conservation of biodiversitiy) was in the third position in line with the aim of reforestation. Therefore, the most suitable species were Quercus faginea (19.75%) and Quercus ilex (19.35%), which offer a good balance between all the factors affecting the success and viability of reforestation.

Technological advances have allowed the development of new roof assembly typologies with higher efficiency and less waste. However, in the construction sector the focus is generally on reducing cost and not in sustainable development factors. Short-sighted building planning based only on economic criteria should be avoided improving decision support systems. In addition, the selection of an appropriate roof assembly in a building’s design stage is a complex problem due to the existence of different tangible and intangible factors and the multiple alternatives available. The roof typologies under study involve prefabricated concrete, steel and laminated wood structures. This research work applies a multi-criteria hybrid model combining the Analytical Hierarchy Process with the Delphi method and the VIKOR technique for implementing sustainability criteria in the selection of a roof assembly in medium span buildings. The proposed decision support system enables the use of the triple bottom line that considers economic, social and environmental criteria. Under the criteria analyzed, the compromise solution found is the self-supporting curved system.

This paper presents an application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) by integrating a Delphi process for selecting the best sustainable disinfection technique for wastewater reuse projects. The proposed methodology provides project managers a tool to evaluate problems with multiple criteria and multiple alternatives which involve non-commeasurable decision criteria, with expert opinions playing a major role in the selection of these treatment technologies. Five disinfection techniques for wastewater reuse have been evaluated for each of the nine criteria weighted according to the opinions of consulted experts. Finally, the VIKOR method has been applied to determine a compromise solution, and to establish the stability of the results. Therefore, the expert system proposed to select the optimal disinfection alternative is a hybrid method combining the AHP with the Delphi method and the VIKOR technique, which is shown to be appropriate in realistic scenarios where multiple stakeholders are involved in the selection of a sustainable disinfection technique for wastewater reuse projects.

The role of infrastructures in boosting the economic growth of the regions is widely recognized. In many cases, an infrastructure is selected by subjective reasons. Selection of the optimal infrastructure for sustainable economic development of a region should be based on objective and founded reasons, not only economical, but also environmental and social. In this paper is developed such selection through a hybrid method based on Delphi, analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and VIKOR (from Serbian, VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje). To do this, a panel of experts assesses both the infrastructures and the drivers for their selection. The method lets us to verify the consistency of answers from experts. In our case, AHP obtains preference values for each infrastructure using the eigenvector method. Meanwhile, the VIKOR method evaluates whether the proposed is the one that best fits the prevailing view, minimizing the regret to the most separate opinions. Thus, for La Costera (Spain), the region under study, this research work concludes that the thematic route is the optimal infrastructure.