Application of MCDM to Geological Exploration Planning

MCDM is applied to select regular exploration networks for several, serially correlated and anisotrope geological parameters. The relative importance of estimation accuracy for the different parameters is different. Geostatistics is used for calculating the estimation variance for ungaged points, areal averages or blocks as a function of the decision variables: exploration density, distance between exploration points and rotation angle. The statistical criteria refer to the minimimization of the estimation variance. The other objective to be minimized is the exploration effort. A composite form of compromise programming is applied to find a trade-off among the conflicting objectives. The methodology is illustrated by a coal exploration case.