Multi-criteria decision analysis for sustainability assessment of decentralised water treatment systems (DWTS) in developing countries.

尽管获得安全饮用水和卫生设施已被联合国确认为一项人权，但普遍获得基本需求仍然是当今的一项重大挑战，因此被确定为2030年可持续发展议程中的可持续发展目标之一。小规模的水处理系统有助于在常规系统没有提供服务的地区提供安全水，例如农村或城市周边地区。然而，由于资源的可获得性、组织支持以及其他关键因素，这一背景可能会证明其本身具有挑战性。观察到的这些系统的适度成功源于一些重要的标准没有得到满足。威胁地方方案长期功能的制约因素不一定与技术性能有关，而是与环境、技术、政府、经济或社会性质的一系列影响因素有关。该项目的目的是制定一个决策支持框架，以评估分散的、小规模的水处理系统在发展中国家的可持续性。这项研究将仔细调查在这一背景下影响可持续性的多学科因素。综合不同的可持续性因素，如经济、环境，特别是社会方面，对于提供更全面的评价至关重要。一些成熟的评估方法，如生命周期分析或成本效益分析，没有考虑社会经济因素，在这方面不能提供良好的可持续性评价。该项目将利用多标准决策分析(MCDA)将不同方面结合起来，以便在一个普遍和全面的决策支持框架中同时评价不同的标准及其定量和定性属性，重点是确保利益攸关方高度接受决策过程。这一框架的适用性将通过发展中国家的案例研究进行评估，在这些国家，将对真正的系统进行评估，以便找到最佳可用的替代方案。然后，决策支持工具将向利益攸关方提供支持，以决定最佳的前进道路，并有望帮助我们更接近普及安全饮用水。

Even though access to safe drinking water and sanitation has been recognised by the United Nations as a human right, providing universal access to basic needs is still an important challenge of today, and as such was set as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Small-scale systems for water treatment can contribute to the provision of safe water in areas not served by conventional systems, such as rural or peri-urban areas. However, this context can prove itself challenging due to availability of resources, organisational support, among other critical factors. The observed moderate success of these systems derives from some important criteria not being met. The constraints that threaten the long-term functionality of the local schemes are not necessarily related to performance of the technologies, but to a series of influential factors of environmental, technical, governmental, economic or social nature. The aim of this project is to develop a decision-support framework to assess sustainability of decentralised, small-scale water treatment systems in the context of developing countries. The study will carefully investigate the multidisciplinary factors that affect the sustainability in this context. Integrating different sustainability factors such as economic, environmental and especially social aspects is crucial for providing a more comprehensive evaluation. Some well-established assessment methodologies such as Life Cycle Analysis or Cost-Benefit Analysis do not consider socioeconomic factors and would not provide a good sustainability evaluation in this context. This project will integrate different aspects using Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in order to simultaneously evaluate different criteria and their quantitative and qualitative attributes in one universal and holistic decision support framework, focusing on ensuring high acceptance of the decision-making process by stakeholders. The applicability of this framework will be evaluated by case studies in developing countries, where real systems will be assessed in order to find the best available alternative. The decision support tool will then provide support to stakeholders in deciding the best way forward, and hopefully helping to bring us closer to universal access to safe drinking water.