An Operational Approach to Multiple Objective Decision Making for Public Water Resources Projects Using Integer Goal Programming

Traditional decision-making techniques, such as linear programming, can only optimize one criterion. A variation of linear programming called integer goal programming is proposed as a quantitative approach to integrate multiple objectives in the selection and scheduling of federally funded water resources projects. The deviations from target levels of both economic and environmental objectives may be minimized by using integer goal programming in the evaluation of projects under the proposed multiple objectives. Integer goal programming has the added advantages of permitting decision makers to specify and to change the priorities given each goal and to select only complete rather than partial projects in multiple period funding of multiple objective projects.