Assessment of the Knowledge-based Decisions in the field of Urban Water
Infrastructure in Iran and Brazil Using Nominal-based Multi-Criteria
Group Decision Method
Abstract
Among the most complex activities in water companies is extracting
accurate operational data of Urban Water Infrastructure (UWI). Hence,
the use of data-based methods would be faced limitations for asset
management of the UWI. This shortcoming could be improved using
knowledge-based decisions. In this study, using this method,
Maintenance-Rehabilitation Planning (MRP) of urban water pipes is
assessed. Hence, the criteria effective on the MRP of the pipes were
firstly determined. Then, two groups of experts in Iran and Brazil were
invited to rank the determined criteria. For this purpose, a
Multi-Criteria Group Decision-Making (MCGDM) method was developed based
on the nominal group technique. This MCGDM method was implemented based
on two approaches; first, the viewpoints of non-weighted decision-makers
were considered; and second, the experts were weighted to rank the
criteria. Finally, the results of these approaches in the two countries
were pairwise compared. This comparison led to improving the literature
and management in water companies of Iran and Brazil by identifying the
effective criteria for the MRP of the pipes based on knowledge-based
decisions. Further in this field, it was found that weighting the
experts have no decisive effect on the results; and this is only
effective in groups where the decision-makers weights are identically
distributed. Moreover, it was found that there is a relation between the
similarity of results and the similarity of experts’ profiles in
knowledge-based decision groups of various countries such as Iran and
Brazil.