Assessing Different Possibilities for the Reuse of an Open-pit Quarry Using the Choquet Integral

Multiple criteria decision analysis is a valuable and increasingly widely-used tool to support decision-making processes where there is a choice to be made between different options. This approach is particularly useful in the context of sustainability assessment where a complex and interconnected range of environmental, social and economic issues must be taken into consideration and where objectives are often competing. It has been generally agreed that when dealing with sustainability issues, neither an economic reductionism nor an ecological one is possible. Because in general, economic sustainability has an ecological cost, and because ecological sustainability has an economic cost, an integrative framework such as multicriteria evaluation is needed for tackling sustainability issues properly. In this sense, the analysis of the possible interactions among the elements is of particular importance for assessing the sustainability of a certain transformation. Within this context, a very important role is played by the ‘non-additive measurement theory’, that makes use of the Choquet integral. This last represents the generalization of the weighted average method and provides a computational structure for aggregating information, taking into account interactivity between criteria. The present paper proposes a multicriteria approach that is able to support decision makers in the choice of the best solution for the reuse of an abandoned open-pit quarry. Five alternative options have been compared based on different indicators that have been aggregated using the Choquet integral in order to obtain the global sustainability level of each solution and to better highlight the trade-offs between the aspects involved in the decision. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.