Developing a Risk-based Multiple Attribute Group Decision-Making Model for Effective Watershed Management based on the combinational method of IOWA-CP: Case Study of Mashhad Plain

In recent years, inappropriate governance in water resources, qualitative and quantitative degradation and unbalanced allocation of resources, have caused to crisis within the watersheds. Therefore, one of the most important challenges for decision-makers (DMs) is selection of final criteria, evaluation of scenarios, and choosing the preferable scenario for watershed. Selection of final criteria and the best scenario depend on DMs’ preferences and risk attitudes. This paper develops a novel approach based on two types of risk assessment to calculate the score and group consensus degree for selecting final criteria and scenarios’ ranking. In the first type, number of criteria are satisfied, and in the second type, number of DMs’ consensus are considered. Accordingly, the group weights and consensus degrees of initial criteria are calculated in several risk attitudes, using the ordered weighted averaging operator and the compromise programming. The final criteria are selected based on the combinational group weights-consensus degrees, compared with an acceptable threshold level. Then, the suggested scenarios are evaluated with respect to the final criteria, and the best scenario is selected based on the proposed method using the risk assessments. This approach has been developed for Mashhad plain, to select the final criteria and the best scenario in 2040. The results show that the number of final criteria and scenarios’ ranking depend on the two risk assessment types. Finally, the sustainable development was analyzed to determine the preferable scenarios for satisfying the most important criteria. Development of this method is recommended for watershed management in Iran.