INTRODUCTION
In Thailand, the importance of water as a vital resource for all aspects of life has always been respected. His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, during a speech delivered at the Chitralada Villa on March 17, 1986, advised: “It is very important for us to have water to drink and use as a result of life is here. If there’s water, We can survive. If there’s no electricity, we have a tendency to can also survive. However, if there’s electricity but no water, we have a tendency to cannot survive.” Thus, water resource management could be a fundamental basis for economical development in Thailand.
Nevertheless, water management strategies in Thailand have been oriented towards supply side management with an emphasis on construction of irrigation dams and water distribution systems, rather than on demand factors (Kaosa-ard, M. 2001). Because of the multiple objectives of such a complex issue, water resource management should be implemented to cover entire watersheds, from upstream to downstream, and must involve the active participation of all stakeholders within the watershed (Office of the Strategic Committee for Water Resource Management, 2012).
Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is an approach to decision making in the assessment process and can be used in combination for water resource management in order to address multiple objectives in complicated situations. This method was used to analyze multiple variables in complex systems, with the aim of identifying optimal choices to inform the decision-making process. The structure of this conceptual framework for analyzing the characteristics of the problems to decide the objectives and criteria are diverse and complex, leading to adjustment these problems by eval...
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... the pairwise comparisons (W. Ho 2008; M.J. Liberatore and R.L. Nydick 2008).
Usually, at the highest of the hierarchy is that the goal; the following level contains the criteria and sub-criteria, whereas alternatives lie at the bottom of the hierarchy. The results of the comparison are placed as compared matrices. Finally judgments are created, the local priorities of the criteria, sub criteria and alternatives is calculated using the principal eigenvector of a comparison matrix, as suggested by Saaty (1980). The synthesis is performed by multiplying the criteria specific priority vector of the alternatives with the corresponding criterion weight, and so evaluative the results to get the final composite alternatives priorities with respect to the goal. The highest value of the priority vector indicates the best-ranked alternative. (B. Srdjevic and Z. Srdjevic 2008)
Generally, case-based approaches to preference elicitation in MCDA include the three steps shown in Figure 3.1
This step depends on defining the right problem at the beginning of the process too create usable alternative to the objectives that will be used to make a decision. Identifying as many alternatives as possible will offer a wide range of possible solutions that can be used to make a decision. The alternatives selected should be the ones that will enable the decision made to achieve the objectives of the decision problem. Joan’s next step in the PrOACT decision making model is to understand the consequences and repercussion of every alternative identified. When she reaches this point of the PrOACT decision making model Joan can map the alternatives she selected for the objectives statement for her decision problem. At this point Joan can use decision matrix to identify the best alternative that can be used to accomplish the objectives of the problems she identified. The final step in Joan’s PrOACT decision making model is wrestling with trade-offs equalizing some alternative in order to apply the same weight when used in the decision making process. This is not a complex process but identifying similar items or process that can be weighted equally should be used when making trade-offs. This step involves identifying what will be given up by choosing one alternative comparatively to what will be given up by choosing another alternative for the decision that is being made.
4. United Nations Development Programme, U.N. Human Development Report 2006, Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty, and the Global Water Crisis, web. 6 Dec. 2009 http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr2006_english_summary.pdf
In order to address the above components, five decision making steps have to be put in place, these are; being attentive, being intelligent, being reasonable, being responsible, and being reflective. The first step, being attentive, involves evaluating the whole situation and coming up with the data and information about the problem at hand. In so doing the following questions are viewed; what facts to bear in mind, what direction to take so as to get the expected solution, and what is the main issue to work on. In the second step, being intelligent, the information is clearly studied to determine whether the collected data is revealing the correct details concerning the problem. Determine the stakeholde...
Introduction on Water It covers 70% of our planet, makes up 75% of our body, it is necessary for survival and it is declining at a rapid rate (http://www.sscwd.org). It is water. Unfortunately, clean water is rare, almost 1 billion people in developing countries do not have access to water everyday. “Yet, we take it for granted, we waste it, and we even pay too much to drink it from little plastic bottles” (The Water Project). Use of earth’s natural resources should be seen as prosperity, although it is taken for granted, every aspect of daily life revolves around the environment, forcing water conservation to be necessary for future on this planet.
Explain the importance of defining the objectives, scope and success criteria of the decisions to be taken
Additive strategy is a decision making method in which each alternative is evaluated on each of the important elements affecting the decision and the alternative with the highest overall rating is chosen. The Additive strategy assumes that the high ratings on one factor compensate for low ratings on another. This strategy is useful but it does not support the fact that some factors are more important than the others. Elimination by aspects is a decision making method in which changes are evaluated against criteria that have been ranked according to importance. This
Developing our national economy, especially industry, requires a great amount of natural resources, such as land, water, oil, coal, gas and iron. However, the natural resources are limited and decline very quickly when a large population exploits them everyday. Take fresh water as an example, in 1990, 58% of Chinese cities (http://www.cass.net.cn/y_sjr/y_cn_sjr_334.htm) suffered from the insufficiency of water. It not only brings great disadvantages to people's daily life, but also has a passive influence on the economic development. Released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the economic loss caused by the insufficiency of water is 250 billion RMB per year, including 230 billion lost industrial output and 20 billion agricultural losses.
The elements of the hierarchy can relate to any aspect of the decision problem, tangible or intangible, estimated or carefully measured, well or poorly understood. Once that hierarchy is established, the decision maker systematically examines the various elements, comparing them to each other in pairs. In making the comparisons, the decision maker can use his/her judgments about the elements’ relative meaning and importance, or they can use well refined data about the elements. AHP converts the judgments to numerical values that are processed, evaluated and compared over the entire range of the decision problem. A numerical weight or priority vector is derived for each element of the hierarchy, allowing diverse and often incommensurable elements to be compared to one another in a rational and consistent way.
„X Encourage household water security by making enough water of adequate quality available year-round to ensure family survival, health and productivity, without compromising the integrity of the environment.
Clean and safe drinking water resources are becoming scarce as the population grows. The world is facing many problems, but the most important thing needed to survive, is water. Water is getting low in many countries, therefore residents are suffering the misfortune of not having the reliable source of clean water. Today many countries are having water shortages meaning rivers, lakes, streams and groundwater are not enough to rely on for supplying water demands. For example, California is facing a drastic water shortage, the natural water resources are not enough to fulfill their water demands.
Various phases of decision-making process presented in Figure 2 are more relevant for unstructured and semi-structured non-programmed decisions. Problems that occur infrequently are semi-structured and unstructured and a great deal of uncertainty is associated with the outcomes of various alternatives, require the managers to utilize all the phases decision-making process [5]. The various phases of the decision-making process, the problems involved therein, and the type of information systems required to furnish information to overcome these problems are discussed below :
One main causes of water scarcity is water mismanagement worldwide. Water mismanagement has become a crisis of governance that will impact heavily ...
Freshwater in the world makes up only a small portion of water on the planet. While the percentage of water in the world is nearly 70%, only 2.5% is consumable. Even further, only <1% is easily accessible to basic human needs. According to National Geographic, “by 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, with two-thirds of the world's population living in water-stressed regions as a result of use, growth, and climate change.” With this current trend, water will become more immersed in environmental, economic, political, and social changes. Many of these in later years shall need to be addressed as tension rises:
Water is an integral part of not only human beings but all other creatures in the world. We use it every day for different purposes such as domestic, agricultural and industrial. Water has always been a prestigious resource. However, the majority of people do not appraise water’s worth since they do not face water scarcity; whereas, in third world countries it is one of the most serious problems. Nearly 2.4 billion people have a lack of water resources in the world, shows the investigation done by the Pacific Institute, an Oakland, California-based non-profit scientific research group. Moreover, every year this number is growing gradually and more people are suffering (Bloomberg News, 2010). There are certain causes which deteriorate current situation. The most influential reasons are global warming, pollution by human-beings and overpopulation. It is known that India is one of the countries which face water scarcity so this essay will consider the possible ways of solutions of water shortage in India.