Ranking the environmental sustainability in selected Iranian provinces: A comparison of AHP and TOPSIS methods

It is important to assess the environmental sustainability in order to achieve the goal of sustainable development. For this purpose, in this study the environmental sustainability of some of the Iranian provinces has been evaluated and compared using two methods of AHP and TOPSIS in the years of 2007 and 2012. Based on the results from AHP, the most stable and the least stable provinces in 2007 were Kermanshah and Markazi, while in the year 2012 East Azerbaijan and Kerman were the most and least stable provinces. Based on the TOPSIS results, in 2007, Golestan and Ardebil and in 2012 Golestan and Kerman were the most and the least stable provinces in Iran. The results show that even though both AHP and TOPSIS methods are appropriate at prioritizing provinces, but the results from the AHP are the preferred ones.