A GIS-based fuzzy aggregation modeling approach for air pollution risk assessment

In this study, a fuzzy aggregation modeling approach was developed for the cumulative risk assessment associated with multiple air pollution factors and evaluation criteria in a GIS-based air quality management system. This is based on the fact that to assess the cumulative risk from multiple air pollution factors is very difficult due to the existence of various uncertainties and complexities. Fuzzy membership functions were then used to quantify these uncertainties and complexities. In addition, an ordered-weighted product (OWP) approach was used to identify the relative importance of each pollution factor. A number of tasks have been undertaken, including (1) quantification of the evaluation criteria using fuzzy sets; (2) construction of fuzzy membership functions; (3) calculation of the relative importance, i.e. weighting coefficient w_i for each air pollution factor; (4) construction of fuzzy aggregation-OWP modeling; (5) assessment of the air pollution cumulative risk. The developed approach was applied to a case study of California. Reasonable results have been generated, which are useful for evaluation of the cumulative risk resulting from multiple air pollution factors.