Urban Sustainability Evaluation under the Modified TOPSIS Based on Grey Relational Analysis

Analysis of the Spatial-Temporal Evolution of Urbanization Quality in Zhejiang Province, China

Taking cities in Zhejiang Province of China from 2011 to 2020 as the research object, a multi-dimensional urbanization quality evaluation index system was constructed using the comprehensive analysis method, and the urbanization quality of 11 cities in Zhejiang Province was quantitatively measured using the entropy weight method. The system classification and time-space evolution analysis were carried out using ArcGIS software (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., RedLands, CA, USA) to comprehensively study the evolution characteristics and influencing factors of the urbanization quality of cities in Zhejiang Province. This study provides a reference for local governments to formulate feasible urbanization development strategies and policies to promote the high-quality development of urbanization and for the construction of new urbanization in other provinces and cities.

The Dynamic Evaluation Model of Health Sustainability under MCDM Benchmarking Health Indicator Standards

The coronavirus pandemic causing millions of deaths around the world has raised awareness of the importance of healthcare in a city, especially its efficiency in the city's system. Although the health dimension is found to have critical effects on sustainable development in addition to the existing three dimensions, the majority of sustainability assessments that are developed based on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do not define standards for each indicator. On the contrary, an effective assessment model should be dynamic and suitable to the context of each city by referring to standardized criteria, such as those in a health indicator standard (HIS), instead of comparing with other cities. Hence, this research presents a new sustainability assessment model that integrates the health dimension (HEDm) with the other three dimensions generally used in studies of sustainable development (STD) and develops an assessment method to evaluate real data with references to the HIS from reliable organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN), for the SDGs. By using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) with the framework obtained from literature reviews, ISO Standards (ISO37120, ISO37122, ISO37123) and U4SSC, the researchers formed indicators in four dimensions with a total of 15 elements and 45 indicators. Afterwards, the weight of each indicator was determined with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) conducted in each dimension and element, resulting in a four-dimensional sustainability assessment model based on HIS value that limits the need to compare with other cities. The results from Khon Kaen province have shown the weaknesses and strengths of the target city that policymakers can reference to formulate a policy and strategy to improve HIS values in each dimension to meet standards, elevate city capacity and raise quality of life for the people living in the area.

A multi-criteria decision-making with regret theory-based MULTIMOORA method under interval neutrosophic environment

The MULTIMOORA (multiple multi-objective optimization by ratio analysis) method is useful for multiple criteria decision-making method. It is based on expected utility theory and assumes that decision makers are completely rational. However, some studies show that human beings are usually bounded rational, and their regret aversion behaviors play an important role in the decision-making process. Interval neutrosophic sets can more flexibly depict uncertain, incomplete and inconsistent information than single-valued neutrosophic sets. Therefore, this paper improves the traditional MULTIMOORA method by combining the regret theory under interval neutrosophic sets. Firstly, the regret theory is used to calculate the utility value and regret-rejoice value of each alternatives. Secondly, the criteria weights optimization model based on the maximizing deviation is constructed to obtain the weight vector. Then, the MULTIMOORA method is used to determine the order of the alternatives. Finally, an illustrative example about school selection is provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. Sensitivity analysis shows the validity of the regret theory in the proposed method, and the ranking order change with different regret avoidance parameter. Comparisons are made with existing approaches to illustrate the advantage of the proposed method in reflecting decision makers’ psychological preference.

Benchmarking sustainability of pilgrimage cities: a case of three cities in Tamil Nadu, India

Purpose

Rapid urbanization and development of pilgrimage cities cause significant problems for the environment and society, leading to long-term challenges. Despite several discussions on city sustainability, the literature does not address some of the specific problems of pilgrimage cities. Hence, this study attempts at developing a method to examine the growth pattern and sustainability of pilgrimage cities in southern part of India.

Design/methodology/approach

The benchmarking method and the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability are considered to construct the Pilgrimage City Sustainability Index (PCSI). Appropriate variables and categories are identified through a literature review and expert opinion survey. The benchmark values of the variables are derived by contemplating the pilgrimage cities of Tamil Nadu, one of the states with the largest tourist arrivals in India. Subsequently, three prominent pilgrimage cities from Tamil Nadu were chosen for the case study and the method was tested.

Findings

The result reveals that the cities investigated are performing above average in the sustainability index, with slight variations in their dimension scores. While the category scores of cities assist in identifying macro-level issues, the variable scores provide an insight into micro-level issues. Furthermore, the gap analysis between the benchmark and the present value of each variable discloses the immediate area of attention in each city. Thus, the cities could set more specific targets, frame strategies and/or collaborate with matching cities to bridge these gaps.

Social implications

This index assessment provides a comparison of the pros and cons of these pilgrimage cities and helps identify their demand and supply. Policymakers can find appropriate tools and approaches that aid in sustainable urban development and tourism management.

Originality/value

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in emphasizing the application of the benchmarking method to assess the sustainability of Indian pilgrimage sites. With appropriate modifications, this method can be used in varied contexts across the globe.

Study on ecological security evaluation of Anhui Province based on normal cloud model

As the main driving force for the economic development of East China, the economic development of Anhui has been in good state in recent years. In 2019, the GDP of Anhui Province has reached 3711.4 billion yuan with an increase of 7.5% over the previous year. With the rapid economic development, many environmental problems such as resource depletion, vegetation degradation, and air quality decline have gradually increased. The ecological environment is an important foundation for social and economic development. To examine the status of regional ecological security, this study builds a comprehensive evaluation index system based on the "pressure-state-response" (PSR) framework and uses the entropy weight method to determine the index weight. Then the normal cloud model is introduced to dynamically calculate the ecological security status of Anhui Province from 2010 to 2019. The results show that (1) the ecological security status of Anhui has improved significantly and reached a safe status in 2019. (2) The ecological security status of 16 prefecture-level cities has also been improved, and the ecological security status of these cities is at level III and above except Huainan. There are significant differences in internal development, and the ecological security status of the southern region is ahead of the northern and central region. (3) From the perspective of the criterion level, the pressure and response subsystems develop faster, and the state subsystem develops more slowly. Therefore, it is necessary to pay more attention to the impact of the state subsystem on the overall development of ecological security in the future.

Comprehensive evaluation of environmental dimension reduction of multi-type islands: a sustainable development perspective

In recent years, the sustainable development of islands has attracted increasing attention from countries all over the world. An important prerequisite for promoting sustainable development is to understand the foundation and sustainable development potential of islands. Constructing index systems and models is an important means of evaluating the sustainability of islands. This study used factor analysis (FA) to construct an indicator system and set weights. Thirty-eight indicators were set from both natural and social directions to evaluate the sustainable development of seven typical islands in China. The FA removed the 10 indicators that were too relevant, and the 28 effective indicators were reduced into 9 main factors for evaluation. The results showed that the evaluation results are in line with the actual development of the island, which verifies the applicability of the model to different types of islands. The study also found that the changing trends of island social sustainability, tourism sustainability, ecological sustainability, resource sustainability, and economic sustainability are consistent. The value of fully balanced islands is higher than that of unbalanced or undeveloped islands. Among the seven islands, social islands have the highest total value, and ecological islands have the lowest total value.

An Ecological Development Level Evaluation of the Forestry Industry in China Based on a Hybrid Ensemble Approach

The straits of ecological development in the forestry industry and the problems existing in the industrial forestry system are currently the main focus of policy-making research in China, to alleviate the contradiction between forestry economic development and the ecological environment, as well as evaluate the level and trend of the ecological development in China’s forestry industry. This paper analyzed the status of ecological development in China’s forestry industry via public data, constructed a novel evaluation index system for forestry industrial ecological development, and proposed a hybrid ensemble approach combined with principal component analysis, entropy weights, and fuzzy-DEMATEL to synthetically evaluate the ecological development level and system coordination of the forestry industry in each province of China. The experimental results show that technological innovation ability is the most significant restriction for the ecological development of China’s forestry industry. Obvious regional differences in the promotion degree of ecological development and the coordination of various elements throughout the country has also been confirmed. Findings of our research could be used for promoting the green transformation and upgrading of the forestry industry, and providing targeted practical countermeasures according to local conditions for governments at all levels.

Intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS as a Method for Assessing Socioeconomic Phenomena on the Basis of Survey Data

In the assessment of most complex socioeconomic phenomena with the use of multicriteria methods, continuous data are used, the source of which are most often public statistics. However, there are complex phenomena such as quality of life and quality of services in the assessment, for which questionnaire surveys and ordinal measurement scales are used. In this case, the use of classic multicriteria methods is very difficult, taking into account the way of presenting this type of data by official statistics, as well as their permissible transformations and arithmetic operations. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was the presentation of a novel framework which can be applied for assessing socioeconomic phenomena on the basis of survey data. It was assumed that the object assessments may contain positive or negative opinions and an element of uncertainty expressed in the form a “no”, “difficult to say”, or “no opinion” answers. For this reason, the intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS (IF-TOPSIS) method is proposed. To demonstrate the potential of this solution, the results of measuring the subjective quality of life of the inhabitants of 83 cities in EU countries, EFTA countries, the UK, the Western Balkans, and Turkey are presented. For most cities, a high level of subjective quality of life was observed using the proposed approach. The highest level of quality of life was observed in Zurich, whereas the lowest was observed in Palermo.

The hierarchical SMAA-PROMETHEE method applied to assess the sustainability of European cities

Measuring the level of sustainability taking into account many contributing aspects is a challenge. In this paper, we apply a multiple criteria decision aiding framework, namely, the hierarchical-SMAA-PROMETHEE method, to assess the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of 20 European cities in the period going from 2012 to 2015. The application of the method is innovative for the following reasons: (i) it permits to study the sustainability of the mentioned cities not only comprehensively but also considering separately particular macro-criteria, providing in this way more specific information on their weak and strong points; (ii) the use of PROMETHEE and, in particular, of PROMETHEE II, avoids the compensation between different and heterogeneous criteria, that is arbitrarily assumed in value function aggregation models; finally, (iii) thanks to the application of the Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis, the method provides more robust recommendations than a method based on a single instance of the considered preference model compatible with few preference information items provided by the Decision Maker.

Regional Land Eco-Security Evaluation for the Mining City of Daye in China Using the GIS-Based Grey TOPSIS Method

Regional ecological security assessment is a significant methodology for environmental protection, land utilisation, and human development. This study aims to reveal the regional constraints of ecological resources to overcome the difficulties and complexities in quantification of current models used in land ecosystems. For this purpose, the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) was linked to a grey relational analysis and integrated with a geographic information system. The obtained method was used to construct a land eco-security evaluation on a regional scale for application in a traditional mining city, Daye, in central China. Parameter analysis was introduced to the method to produce a more realistic spatial distribution of eco-security. Subsequently, based on the pressure–state–response framework, the eco-security index was calculated, and the carrying capacity of land resources and population for each sub-region were analysed. The results showed that: (i) very insecure and insecure classes comprised 5.65% and 18.2% of the total area, respectively, highlighting the vulnerable eco-environmental situation; (ii) moderate secure classes areas comprised a large amount of arable land, spanning an area of 494.5 km2; (iii) secure areas were distributed in the northwest, containing mostly water and wetland areas and accounting for 426.3 km2; and (iv) very secure areas were located on the southeastern region, involving traditional woodland with a better vegetation cover and an overall higher eco-environmental quality. In addition, for each sub-region, the extremely low and low ecological security areas were mainly arable and urban lands, which amounted to 305 and 190 km2, respectively. Under the current ecological constraints, sub-region 1 cannot continue supporting the population size in Daye City. The present results demonstrate the accuracy of our methodology, and our method may be used by local managers to make effective decisions for regional environment protection and sustainable use of land resources.

Multi-Criteria Decision Method for Sustainable Watercourse Management in Urban Areas

The rapid urban growth followed by disordered occupation has been generating significant impacts on cities, bringing losses of an economic and social nature that directly interfere with the well-being of the population. In this work, a proposal for local urban infrastructure problems associated with watercourse management is presented, comparing Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) techniques and Low-Impact Development (LID) concepts with alternative traditional interventions. The study addresses sustainable alternatives to cope with the urbanization of the Cehab’s open channel, which is an important urban watercourse tributary of the Muriaé River, at the municipality of Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro—Brazil. The multi-criteria decision-making method called Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was applied here. The results highlighted the better performance of sustainable techniques when compared to the traditional ones, with an overall advantage of the geogrids and geocells for this case study. The obtained TOPSIS coefficients-C for these techniques were higher (0.59488, for Reach 1; and 0.68656, for Reach 2) than those for the others. This research, therefore, presented an important urban watercourse management methodology that can be further applied to guide sustainable investments and help the decision-making associated with the development of territories.

Exploring Grey Systems Theory-Based Methods and Applications in Sustainability Studies: A Systematic Review Approach

In recent years, there have been international movements advocating more sustainable societies, and as a result of such movements, a remarkably important sub-branch has been shaped in systems studies called sustainability. It would be vital to propose methods that could deal with inherent complexities and uncertainties in such systems. Grey systems theory (GST) represents a nascent method that could help to solve complexities in the face of multifaceted problems, uncertainty, and complexity in systems, and the theory could considerably contribute to sustainability studies. The present study sought to fill a gap and provide an updated review of the literature on the roles and impacts of GST-based methods in sustainability studies as one of the most significant areas of exploring economic, social and environmental systems. Primarily, the theoretical foundations of sustainability and GST were briefly reviewed. Next, by categorizing the studies conducted in the literature on sustainability studies, GST-based methods used in such studies were identified. Finally, the advantages, effects and functions of GST-based theories and their applications in sustainability studies were explicated. The papers found in this systematic review were searched on such databases as Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect, as published from 2010 up to the first three months of 2020, based on these keywords: grey relation or grey relational, grey model, grey system or grey systems, grey prediction, grey control, grey incidence, grey cluster, grey decision, grey input-output. The total number of publications found on all of the databases was 446, although (following a more meticulous investigation of the publications) 145 ones were used for the comprehensive analysis. The 10 different areas in which GST was used to explore sustainability in the publications were: sustainability assessment, industrial sustainability, urban sustainability, energy sustainability, sustainability development, businesses sustainability, agricultural sustainability, sustainable products, tourism sustainability, social sustainability. The results revealed that complexity, uncertainty, and inaccessibility of a large set of data and initial statistical distributions led researchers to rely on GST in sustainability studies, and that the applied areas of GST in terms of sustainability issues had some features in common, including linguistic variables, long-term projects, technological demands, conflicting goals, and uncertainty. Moreover, compared to other methods used to deal with uncertainty, GST did not require the formation of an extensive databank of classified rules and was more practical and efficient in sustainability calculations (as complex systems) with fewer numerical calculations. Ignoring systematic approaches, causal relations, cause-effect loops, and dynamic feedback was the missing link in the application of GST in sustainability studies as complex economic, social and environmental systems.

Impacts of projected climate change on runoff in upper reach of Heihe River basin using climate elasticity method and GCMs

Understanding the impacts of climate change on runoff is of great importance for water resource assessments and adaptation strategy developments especially for the areas where scare and unevenly distributed water are available. Compared to the hydrological modelling method, the climate elasticity method is more flexible with the advantage of using few data in addressing the issue of investigating the effects of climate change on runoff. This study employed Budyko-based climate elasticity method, combined with temperature-based Blaney-Criddle equation, to obtain the elasticities of runoff to two major climate variables, and then applied this methodology to the upper reach of Heihe River basin, China. The runoff elasticity to precipitation in the study area was estimated to be 0.56-0.57, and the elasticity to temperature was -0.017 to -0.018. Precipitation increases showed a positive effect to runoff increases, and temperature increases showed a negative effect. Performances of 18 General Circulation Models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) were assessed and the best GCMs were selected based on the entropy weighted TOPSIS approach. CSIRO-Mk3.6.0, CCSM4, and CanESM2 were ranked the first three with the best performances in simulating the observed precipitation and temperature over the study area. Climate projections from the above three GCMs showed that precipitation increased by 10% and 12% on average during the two periods of 2021-2050 and 2051-2080, producing 5.6% and 6.7% decreases in the projected long-term runoff compared to those in baseline period (1961-1990). Temperatures were projected to be increased by 2.0 °C and 2.9 °C for the two periods, resulting in the future long-term runoff decreased by nearly 2.0% and 2.9%, respectively.

Dynamic Correlation Analysis Method of Air Pollutants in Spatio-Temporal Analysis

Pollutant analysis and pollution source tracing are critical issues in air quality management, in which correlation analysis is important for pollutant relation modeling. A dynamic correlation analysis method was proposed to meet the real-time requirement in atmospheric management. Firstly, the spatio-temporal analysis framework was designed, in which the process of data monitoring, correlation calculation, and result presentation were defined. Secondly, the core correlation calculation method was improved with an adaptive data truncation and grey relational analysis. Thirdly, based on the general framework and correlation calculation, the whole algorithm was proposed for various analysis tasks in time and space, providing the data basis for ranking and decision on pollutant effects. Finally, experiments were conducted with the practical data monitored in an industrial park of Hebei Province, China. The different pollutants in multiple monitoring stations were analyzed crosswise. The dynamic features of the results were obtained to present the variational correlation degrees from the proposed and contrast methods. The results proved that the proposed dynamic correlation analysis could quickly acquire atmospheric pollution information. Moreover, it can help to deduce the influence relation of pollutants in multiple locations.

A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Community Environment Adaptability for Elderly People Based on the Improved TOPSIS

As the main way of providing care for elderly people, home-based old-age care puts forward higher requirements for the environmental adaptability of the community. Five communities in Wuhu were selected for a comprehensive assessment of environmental suitability. In order to ensure a comprehensive and accurate assessment of the environmental adaptability of the community, we used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to calculate the weight of each indicator and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method to evaluate the adaptability of community, as well as further analyses using a two-dimensional data space map. The results show that the Weixing community is the most suitable for the elderly and outdoor activities of the community.

Personalized Product Evaluation Based on GRA-TOPSIS and Kansei Engineering

With the improvement of human living standards, users’ requirements have changed from function to emotion. Helping users pick out the most suitable product based on their subjective requirements is of great importance for enterprises. This paper proposes a Kansei engineering-based grey relational analysis and techniques for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (KE-GAR-TOPSIS) method to make a subjective user personalized ranking of alternative products. The KE-GRA-TOPSIS method integrates five methods, including Kansei Engineering (KE), analytic hierarchy process (AHP), entropy, game theory, and grey relational analysis-TOPSIS (GRA-TOPSIS). First, an evaluation system is established by KE and AHP. Second, we define a matrix variate—Kansei decision matrix (KDM)—to describe the satisfaction of user requirements. Third, the AHP is used to obtain subjective weight. Next, the entropy method is employed to obtain objective weights by taking the KDM as input. Then the two types of weights are optimized using game theory to obtain the comprehensive weights. Finally, the GRA-TOPSIS method takes the comprehensive weights and the KMD as inputs to rank alternatives. A comparison of the KE-GRA-TOPSIS, KE-TOPSIS, KE-GRA, GRA-TOPSIS, and TOPSIS is conducted to illustrate the unique merits of the KE-GRA-TOPSIS method in Kansei evaluation. Finally, taking the electric drill as an example, we describe the process of the proposed method in detail, which achieves a symmetry between the objectivity of products and subjectivity of users.