Using topsis to develop desertification indicators

Abstract

Desertification is regarded as one of the most serious social, economic and environmental issues in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. Desertification is the result of complex interactions among various factors, including climate change and human activities. Multi criteria decision making (MCDM) problems arise in situations where a group of decision maker(s) faces a problem of choosing the best alternative among several possible alternatives. The MCDM techniques can be categorized into multiple objective mathematical programming (MOMP) and multi attribute decision making (MADM). TOPSIS assumes that each attribute has a tendency toward monotonically increasing or decreasing utility. In conclusion, the TOPSIS methodology that has been explained in this paper is a cost-effective and flexible for desertification indicators approach. It provides a screening tool to identify, prefer and weight indicators for further investigation. By considering this fact that in many cases determining precisely the exact value of the attribute respect to criteria is difficult, their values are considered as fuzzy data.