RANKING MULTI CRITERIA RIVER BASIN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ALTERNATIVES USING ELECTRE AND RANFUW P. ANAND RAJ and D. NAGESH KUMAR

A comparative study of ranking river basin planning and development alternatives under a multi-criterion environment, including both qualitative and quantitative aspects using ELECTRE and RANFUW methodologies, is presented in this paper. The purpose is to find the most suitable planning for reservoirs with their associated purposes aimed at the sustained development of one of the major peninsular river (Krishna) basins in India. Formulation of the problem is provided with 7 reservoirs and a diversion headwork leading to an array of 24 alternative systems with 8 main objectives which are further divided into 18 criteria. Of these 24 alternatives, 7 are found to be preferred over others. These 7 alternatives and 8 main objectives are considered in this study for ordering or ranking them. Sensitivity analysis shows that changing both scales and weights assigned to each criterion has affected the final ranking, while there is no change in ranking for different threshold values p and q in ELECTRE methodology. In RANFUW methodology, ranking is not affected by the changes in the scale and weights. Therefore, it is recommended that ELECTRE be used for the screening and RANFUW for the complete ordering or ranking of the reduced set.