Application of the fuzzy approach for the selection of wastewater treatment technologies

Wastewater poses major environmental and health issues to countries around the world. Therefore, ensuring proper wastewater treatment is essential for the protection of human health and environmental sustainability. To achieve the most effective wastewater treatment, there is a need to consider the appropriate technology for development and implementation. The process of evaluating and selecting the most suitable wastewater treatment technology is however challenging due to the presence of numerous decision makers, the multi-dimensional nature of the evaluation process, and the existence of subjectiveness and imprecision in the decision making process. This paper presents a fuzzy approach for evaluating and selecting the most suitable wastewater treatment technology in a given situation. Interval-valued based intuitionistic fuzzy numbers are used to model the subjectiveness and imprecision of the decision making process. An effective algorithm is developed for the evaluation and selection process. An example is presented for demonstrating the applicability of the approach.