Multi-criteria analysis and risk assessment

doi:10.1016/0045-6535(82)90178-3

Chemosphere

Volume 11, Issue 7, 1982, Pages 675-678

https://doi.org/10.1016/0045-6535(82)90178-3 Get rights and content

Abstract

ELECTRE or Concordance Analysis is a French system of multicriteria analysis which is used in economics.

The application of ELECTRE for hazard evaluation and risk assessment of chemical substances is suggested, and a first attempt in adapting it for this purpose is presented.

References (2)

P. Nijkamp
Theory and Application of Environmental Economics
(1977)

Cited by (15)

ELECTRE: A comprehensive literature review on methodologies and applications
2016, European Journal of Operational Research
Citation Excerpt :
In chemical and biochemical engineering, ELECTRE methods have been used for various problems related to the assessment and design of chemical processes and substances as well as identification of bacteria. Other categories, which could have been considered for some papers are: product design, e.g. Keller, Massart, and Brans (1991) and safety management, e.g. Opperhuizen and Hutzinger (1982). Fichefet, Leclercq, Beyne, and Piette (1984) tested ELECTRE II and a maximum likelihood (ML) model for identifying bacteria from a specific family.
Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a valuable resource within operations research and management science. Various MCDA methods have been developed over the years and applied to decision problems in many different areas. The outranking approach, and in particular the family of ELECTRE methods, continues to be a popular research field within MCDA, despite its more than 40 years of existence. In this paper, a comprehensive literature review of English scholarly papers on ELECTRE and ELECTRE-based methods is performed. Our aim is to investigate how ELECTRE and ELECTRE-based methods have been considered in various areas. This includes area of applications, modifications to the methods, comparisons with other methods, and general studies of the ELECTRE methods. Although a significant amount of literature on ELECTRE is in a language different from English, we focus only on English articles, because many researchers may not be able to perform a study in some of the other languages. Each paper is categorized according to its main focus with respect to ELECTRE, i.e. if it considers an application, performs a review, considers ELECTRE with respect to the problem of selecting an MCDA method or considers some methodological aspects of ELECTRE. A total of 686 papers are included in the review. The group of papers considering an application of ELECTRE consists of 544 papers, and these are further categorized into 13 application areas and a number of sub-areas. In addition, all papers are classified according to the country of author affiliation, journal of publication, and year of publication. For the group of applied papers, the distribution by ELECTRE version vs. application area and ELECTRE version vs. year of publication are provided. We believe that this paper can be a valuable source of information for researchers and practitioners in the field of MCDA and ELECTRE in particular.
Evaluating the relationship between chemical exposure and cryptorchidism
2010, Environmental Modelling and Software
One method for the evaluation of complex environmental and health datasets is the discrete mathematical method Hasse diagram technique based on partial orders. The introduced software program package is named PyHasse. In this paper we evaluate a possible human association between maternal exposure to organochlorine compounds used as pesticides and cryptorchidism among male children in Finland and Denmark. We identified differences in comparable and incomparable objects and quantified these differences by the software tool Similarity Analysis in the program PyHasse. Furthermore we interpreted the corresponding Hasse diagrams concerning chosen “striking objects”. We found the position of the chemicals AHCH (alpha-Hexachlorohexane), CHCE (cis-Heptachloroepoxide), DIEL (Dieldrin), and MIRE (Mirex) has some influence on the differentiation of the Hasse diagrams and hence of each two datasets analyzed. The largest disparities can be observed when we compare the Finnish and Danish datasets concerning cryptorchidism. The disparities are demonstrated in the corresponding Hasse diagrams.
Multi-criteria decision analysis in spatial decision support: The ASSESS analytic hierarchy process and the role of quantitative methods and spatially explicit analysis
2005, Environmental Modelling and Software
Citation Excerpt :
These approaches address the decision process in detail and deal with a limited and clearly defined set of alternatives. Many computer-based approaches have been developed to deliver MCDA, or elements thereof, in a range of forms; e.g. ELECTRE III (Opperhuizen and Hutzinger, 1982; Roy, 1991); ASSESS (Bowyer and Veitch, 1994); DEFINITE (Janssen and Herwijnen, 1994); routines in IDRISI GIS (Eastman and Jiang, 1995); GIWIN (Ren, 1997); MULINO-DSS (Giupponi et al., 2004); HERO for heuristic multi-objective optimisation (Kangas et al., 2000); FORM (Kazana et al., 2003); and MEACROS (Mazzetto and Bonera, 2003). Within this wide variety, various approaches are devised to limit alternatives to a feasible set when pairwise comparisons lead to an unmanageable number of alternatives (Maniezzo et al., 1998).
Decision support systems (DSS) that are simple, spatial, flexible, non-deterministic and have a long track record of practical application in a policy environment have until recently been uncommon. There has been a rapid expansion in the development and description of both quantitative and soft system methods that can be applied to decision-making processes and many of these have application in the spatial domain. This paper examines the case for inclusion of new methods in spatial systems for multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) in the context of the history and application of ASSESS (A System for Selecting Suitable Sites). As a spatial implementation of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), ASSESS has been used extensively for MCDA in a policy environment, but has not previously been described in peer-reviewed literature. ASSESS provides an interface in the ArcInfo Grid GIS environment that accesses GIS functionality and enables simple linear addition and combination of data layers, quantised into rankings from 1 to 5 corresponding to suitable/good to unsuitable/bad, for the development of output scenarios that may be constructed from different user viewpoints. Results from assessment of catchment condition for the intensive land use zone of Australia are used to illustrate issues surrounding incorporation of new methods and spatially explicit operations into the simple ASSESS AHP MCDA process. The knowledge and methods base is outlined diagrammatically using AHP MCDA as the core process, and new methods and spatial approaches as adjuncts or inputs at various stages. New methods can assist with correlation of input data layers, subjective weightings, and mixing of qualitative and quantitative data. The merits of the inclusion of quantitative methods based on logical empiricism for explicit definition of input errors and uncertainty, approaches to quantisation of input data, and optimisation of outputs are contrasted with soft systems approaches that incorporate more linguistic and information theory into landscape analysis. The potential role for spatial analysis both in providing static input factor layers and in dynamic optimisation and seamless integration in the decision process are explored.
Sensitivity of schemes for ecotoxicological hazard ranking of chemicals
1984, Chemosphere
A systematic literature review of multicriteria and multi-objective models applied in risk management
2017, IMA Journal of Management Mathematics
PyHasse software for Partial Order Analysis: Scientific background and description of selected modules
2014, Multi-indicator Systems and Modelling in Partial Order

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^☆: This paper was presented at the First Annual SETAC Meeting, Arlington VA. Nov. 1980.

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Multi-criteria analysis and risk assessment☆

Abstract

Theory and Application of Environmental Economics