Ranking willingness to reuse water in cotton irrigation with hybrid MCDM methods: Soke plain case study

Abstract

Soke Plain, located within the B & uuml;y & uuml;k Menderes River Basin is one of the highest producers of cotton in T & uuml;rkiye. The overall irrigation water supply is based on scarce conventional water resources that are being depleted at an increasing pace due to climate change impacts in B. Menderes. The inclusive objective of this research is to pave the way for a "water efficiency action plan" incorporating non-conventional (alternative) water resources for irrigation in Soke Plain to address adaptive management. Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) principles help decision makers (DMs) to identify and apply the most adequate alternatives among other possible ones in resource planning processes. Therefore, the preference ranking of DMs among possible water resource alternatives for irrigation is vital for implementation. This paper marks the first instance of using a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method to evaluate both conventional and non-conventional water resource alternatives for cotton irrigation. The evaluation and ranking of water resource alternatives is processed using the hybrid MCDM method, integration of "Hesitant Fuzzy-Analytic Hierarchy Process" (HF-AHP) and "Hesitant Fuzzy Evaluation based on Distance from Average Solution" (HF-EDAS), namely HF-AHP-EDAS. This procedure implies several possibly contradictory qualitative and quantitative criteria, incorporates ambiguity, vagueness, and hesitancy in decision-makers' decisions, and achieves a consistent, dependable ranking of alternatives. Eight different water resources for irrigation are evaluated by 5 experts, for 15 assessment criteria, in Soke Plain. Conventional water resources blended with drainage water is concluded to be the best irrigation water resource alternative, with HF-AHP-EDAS and also with HF-AHP-PROMETHEE II (Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enriching Evaluations II), that is used for comparison analysis. This choice aligns well with the outlined arguments, culminating in an overall result deemed compliant with the field survey.