Decision Making Framework for Decreasing the Redundancy of Air Quality Monitoring Stations in Vojvodina Province (serbia)

Original scientific paper Air quality monitoring stations are used for quick and reliable assessment of air quality. Although the stations are expensive, very often their number on certain territory exceeds optimal number of stations leading to their redundancy, increased costs, overlapping of data etc. To enable analysis of quantitative and qualitative criteria, authors propose an approach based on well-known decision support tool called analytic hierarchy process (AHP). As the first step in defining the decision framework for decreasing redundancy of stations locally and regionally in Vojvodina Province, three experts were asked to identify key performance indicators for assessing the performance of the stations. Fifteen indicators were selected and divided into three groups (Environmental objectives; Location/Technical objectives; and Social/Economic objectives). Experts evaluated performance of two stations in Municipality of Kikinda. Station KIMA showed better overall performance, so it is suggested to responsible authorities to relocate monitors from KISA station to KIMA station and thus decrease maintenance and operation costs.