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A Multi Expert Decision Support Tool for the Evaluation of Advanced

Wastewater Treatment Trains: A Novel Approach to improve Urban
Sustainability

Article  in  Environmental Science & Policy · September 2018

DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2018.09.006

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Environmental Science & Policy; Volume 90, December 2018, Pages 1-10
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901118303538
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.09.006

1 A Multi Expert Decision Support Tool for the Evaluation of

2 Advanced Wastewater Treatment Trains: A Novel Approach to
3 Improve Urban Sustainability
4
5 Seyed M. K. Sadr1,2*, Devendra P. Saroj2, Jose Carlos Mierzwa3, Scott J. McGrane4,5,
6 George Skouteris6**, Raziyeh Farmani1, Xenofon Kazos2, Benedikt Aumeier7, Samaneh
7 Kouchaki8, Sabeha K. Ouki2
8
9 1 Centre for Water Systems (CWS), College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences,
10 Harrison Building, North Park Road, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4QF, United
11 Kingdom

12 2 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical

13 Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, United Kingdom

14 3 Polytechnic School, Department of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering. Av. Almeida

15 Prado, 83 - Building, Civil Engineering / PHA Butanta 05508-900 - University of Sao Paulo, Sao
16 Paulo, SP - Brazil

17 4 Fraser of Allander Institute, Department of Economics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4

18 0QU, United Kingdom

19 5 Stanford Photonics Research Center, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA

20 6 Centre for Sustainable Manufacturing & Recycling Technologies, Wolfson School of Mechanical
21 and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, United
22 Kingdom

23 7 Department of Chemical Process Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachener

24 Verfahrenstechnik, 52074 Aachen, Germany

25 8 Division of Evolution and Genomic Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, University of

26 Manchester, Manchester, M13 9 NT, United Kingdom

27
28
29 Abstract
30 Wastewater Treatment (WWT) for water reuse applications has been accepted as a
31 strategic solution in improving water supplies across the globe; however, there are still
32 various challenges that should be overcome. Selection of practical solutions is then

* Corresponding author 1: s.m.k.sadr@exeter.ac.uk

** Corresponding author 2: g.s.skouteris@lboro.ac.uk

1
33 required whilst considering technical, environmental, socio-cultural, and financial factors.
34 In this study, a multi expert decision support tool that considers a variety of evaluation
35 criteria is proposed to provide a ranking system for competing advanced WWT
36 technologies in terms of their performance. Two scenarios of water reuse in the contexts
37 of Brazil and Greece are defined, and evaluation is undertaken based on opinions of
38 water reuse experts. The results prove that the tool would successfully facilitate rigorous
39 and methodical analysis in evaluation of WWT technologies for water reuse applications
40 with potential for use under various sets of evaluation criteria, WWT technologies and
41 contexts.
42
43 Keywords: Water reuse; technology selection; group decision making; membrane
44 technologies; environmental impacts
45
46 1 Introduction
47 The global population has doubled to seven billion people in half a century, placing
48 considerable pressure on water resources. It is projected that by 2025, 67% of the global
49 population will face significant water stress and 35% will suffer high constraints in
50 accessing fresh water (Lazarova et al., 2001). Additionally, it is predicted that in the
51 coming decades crowded urban settlements, that will generate heavy loads of water
52 pollutants, will form a large proportion of the habitable world with higher levels of water
53 withdrawal both for domestic and industrial use (Rosegrant et al., 2011). One potential
54 solution to reducing water stress would be the application of water reuse technologies.
55 Water reuse both augments opportunities for natural water quality improvement and
56 improves management of competitive water demands.
57
58 There have already been various configurations of Wastewater Treatment (WWT) trains
59 (Joksimovic et al., 2006), including membrane-assisted technologies, that have been
60 acknowledged as suitable and reliable solutions regarding the removal of emerging
61 pollutants and have been capable of meeting different water reuse standards (Dogan et
62 al., 2016). However, the complexity of the advanced unit processes, together with
63 solution variety, requires a systematic assessment so as optimum solutions are able to
64 be identified and selected. In fact, to find a practical solution is often rather complex, as
65 a wide range of decision requirements and uncertain conditions should be taken into
66 account (Dheena and Mohanraj, 2011).
67
68 Regulations have also been an important obstacle to water reuse implementation
69 (Casani et al., 2005), as they can significantly affect the number and type of solutions

2
 70 and further complicate the process of decision making. This has recently received more
71 attention from the stakeholders and a number of regional, national, and international
72 guidelines or regulations have been established; for example, the World Health
73 Organisation (WHO) has published a number of guidelines on water reuse (for both non-
74 potable and potable water) and wastewater management (WHO, 2017, 2006a, 2006b).
75 Another well-established water reuse guidelines are developed by the US Environmental
76 Protection Agency (USEPA) (USEPA, 2012). A number of countries, such as India and
77 China, have issued their own national water reuse standards/regulations (Eldho, 2014;
78 Sadr et al., 2018; Yi et al., 2011; Zhu and Dou, 2018), however, in many other countries,
79 local regulators still develop their own water reuse -by-
80 (Casani et al., 2005).
81
82 Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a well-established decision support method
83 that strives to model expert thoughts and reasoning, and illustrates modelled results by
84 systematic procedures (Cakir and Canbolat, 2008), whilst evaluating a number of
85 solutions based on a set of criteria (Walker et al., 2015) with respect to economic,
86 environmental, social and technical aspects (Sadr et al., 2015). Decisions, involving
87 various issues, in particular environmental concerns and their associated policies and
88 regulations, oblige the participation of multiple stakeholders, as these decisions may
89 have both local and global impacts on the environment and/or the society (Kalbar et al.,
90 2013). To this end, the aim of any group decision activity is to identify the alternatives
91 that are assessed by a set of individuals as the optimum ones. To achieve a more
92 realistic approach, the experts are asked to assess not only the range of -
93 but also they are requested to provide intermediate degrees as well, corresponding to
94 partial agreement (Bordogna et al., 1997).
95
96 Taking into account the fuzziness in Group Decision Making (GDM) and the fact that the
97 main contributors are experts, linguistic values can be employed, instead of numerical
98 ones. These values are used both for assigning the weights of criteria and for evaluating
99 each alternative against different criteria. Multi-Criteria Multi-Expert Decision Making
100 (MCMEDM) has already been proved to be a useful tool to achieve rankings based on
101 experts judgement (Chen, 2001, 2000). In GDM, the approaches that are adopted for
102 the aggregation of expert opinions play a major role (Fan and Liu, 2010). Technique
103 for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Analytic Hierarchy
104 Process (AHP) are commonly employed in the MCDA models and tools (especially for
105 GDM) (Agrawal et al., 2016; Behzadian et al., 2012; Jaiswal and Mishra, 2017; Zyoud et
106 al., 2016). TOPSIS is the most preferred method when decision problems involve large

3
107 numbers of criteria and technologies, especially if there are bits of quantitative
108 information in the data (Kalbar et al., 2013); whereas, the AHP is a quite powerful
109 technique when the criteria function autonomously (Behzadian et al., 2012). Hybrid
110 models/tools of TOPSIS and AHP have also been developed and applied to different
111 fields -Marbini, 2011; Yousefi and
112 Hadi-Vencheh, 2010). To date and to the best of knowledge, only few pieces
113 of research focused on fuzzy based TOPSIS-AHP group decision making (i.e. multi-
114 expert decision making) in wastewater treatment and water reuse applications (Kamble
115 et al., 2017; Karahalios, 2017; Zyoud et al., 2016).
116
117 This study builds on the work previously presented by Sadr et al., (2015), which adapted
118 an MCMEDM (fuzzy-TOPSIS) for the selection of WWT options in different water reuse
119 situations. In brief, Sadr et al., (2015) addressed a number of critical challenges in water
120 reuse technology selection; namely: (1) alleviated the challenges of using linguistic
121 variables, (2) incorporated opinions of different stakeholders in a panel of decision-
122 making, (3) Showed how to deal with numerous water reuse aspects, criteria, and
123 technologies, and finally, (4) systematised and classified the plethora of information
124 about water reuse scenarios, criteria, and technologies.
125
126 In this work, we implemented an improved GDM method via integrating fuzzy TOPSIS
127 with AHP for the selection of WWT technologies for non-potable water reuse applications
128 in different contexts with distinct regulations and different geographical, environmental,
129 economic and demographic conditions. The approach was tested and validated by
130 application to two case studies: (1) in São Paulo, Brazil, and (2) in Herakleion, Greece.
131
132 2 Methodology
133 Based on the lessons learnt from the previous study, we aimed to conduct this study in
134 six phases (see Figure 1). The first phase develops an improved version of MCMEDM
135 (i.e. IMCMEDM) in order to evaluate membrane-assisted water reuse technologies. The
136 second phase involves the development of water reuse scenarios in the contexts of
137 Brazil and Greece. Part of this phase is to identify and delineate the regions as local for
138 water reuse application. It also explores the existing regulations, guidelines and
139 standards for wastewater treatment and water reuse in those regions and develops a
140 database that enables the comparison and assessment of alternatives. Next two phases,
141 the third and fourth, identify the most important water reuse criteria and develop a list of
142 possible WWT technologies, respectively. The fifth phase involves designing and
143 subsequently distributing surveys on WWT criteria and technologies, whilst the sixth and

4
144 final phase aims at incorporating the thoughts of experts into the technology selection
145 process (presented in the Result and Discussion Section).
146

147
148 Figure 1: The six phases towards selection of wastewater treatment technologies
149 different water reuse scenarios
150
151 2.1 Phase 1: Improved MCMEDM Method for multi expert technology selection
152 The improved MCMEDM (IMCMEDM) is considered as an integrated TOPSIS-AHP (i.e.
153 Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution - Analytic Hierarchy
154 Process) with all details of the TOPSIS model applied for evaluation of WWT
155 technologies being found in the study of Sadr et al., 2015 . The main advantage of this
156 new approach over the conventional MCMEDM is the pair-wise comparison of criteria.
157 Although previous results matched existing water reuse case studies, the evaluation of
158 criteria by the experts - who have participated in both surveys - was reported problematic
159 due to lack of an appropriate and convenient comparison approach for the evaluation of
160 water reuse criteria. They also indicated that pair-wise comparison of criteria would make
161 the evaluation process less biased and more precise, and ease it, although it would be
162 slightly more time-consuming. The pair-wise comparison was considered for this study
163 as it will help in improving the user (water reuse experts or stakeholders) satisfaction
164 and in making the IMCMEDM approach more user-friendly. The pair-wise comparison of
165 criteria results in numerical values corresponding to rows (j) and columns (k):
166 matrix element: Cjk, where criterion Cj is compared against Ck:

5
167

168 Equation 1
169 For diagonal elements, where we have:
170
171 Equation 2
172 And:

173

174 Equation 3
175 where: TW j denotes total score for the j-row. To normalize the fuzzy number, the sum of
176 scores of all rows is required:

177

178 Equation 4
179 where: Sum1, Sum2, and Sum3 are the three elements of a triangular fuzzy number.
180 The can be calculated
181 as follows:

182

183 Equation 5
184 where: a and k denote the order of elements in a triangular fuzzy number and the
185 numbers given by each expert, respectively.
186 The linguistic variables and their attributed fuzzy sets that are required to rate the WWT
187 technologies under the evaluation criteria are presented in Table 1(a).
188 The rating of technologies against different criteria and their weights by k decision
189 makers are computed by Equations 6 and 7, respectively (Chen, 2001, 2000):

190

191 Equation 6
192

193

194 Equation 7

6
195 where: is the rating and is the weight of the criterion given by the k-expert, who
196 participated in the survey. The defined linguistic variables and the corresponding fuzzy
197 sets for evaluation of the criteria are presented in Table 1(b).
198 The Fuzzy Decision Matrix (FDM) is then normalised (Equations 8 and 9) with a view to
199 ensuring compatibility between qualitative and quantitative criteria, alleviating the
200 normalisation challenges in the older versions of TOSIS models, and achieving the
201 closed interval of [0,1].
202

203 Equation 8
204 where: R is the normalised matrix of the fuzzy decision, and is equl to:

205

206 Equation 9
207 In this step, the weights are incorporated into the normalized FDM (Equation 10). Each
208 element ( ) is calculated by using Equation 11 (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2008):
209

210 Equation 10
211
212
213 Equation 11
214 where: represents multiplication in a fuzzy environment. It is noteworthy that the
215 weights given (by the experts) to the evaluation criteria very much depend on and are
216 affected by the context and its environmental, social and technical conditions. The
217 weights may also be influenced by water reuse regulations and guidelines implemented
218 in the region of interest.
219 Once the fuzzy positive-ideal solution ( ) and fuzzy negative-ideal
220 solution ( ) are defined, the vertex method is used to calculate the
221 distance of each alternative from A+ and A-:

222

223 Equation 12

224

225 Equation 13

7
226 where: and when .
227 Finally, the overall performance of all WWT trains (representing their scores and ranks)
228 is calculated by the closeness coefficient ( ) using Equation 14 (Chen, 2000):

229

230 Equation 14
231 with ranging from 0 to 1. High value of indicates better performance of the ith
232 technology, whereas a smaller value points out that the ith solution does not perform well.
233
234 In this study, the mathematical model has been incorporated into the IMCMEDM tool.
235 The IMCMEDM is a stand-alone decision support tool with a user-friendly Graphical User
236 Interface (GUI) developed in a MATLAB environment. More information on the GUI is
237 provided in the Supplemental Online Material (SOM).
238
239 Table 1: Linguistic Variables (LVs) and Fuzzy Sets (FSs): (a) employed for WWTTs
240 rating under each criterion, (b) employed for assigning the weights of the criteria
241 (adapted from Sadr et al., (2015)).
LVs and FSs (a) employed for WWTTs rating under each criterion
Linguistic variables Code Fuzzy sets
1 Very poor VP (0.00, 0.00, 0.10)
2 Poor P (0.00, 0.10, 0.30)
3 Medium poor MP (0.10, 0.30, 0.50)
4 Medium M (0.30, 0.50, 0.70)
5 Medium good MG ( 0.50, 0.70, 0.90)
6 Good G (0.70, 0.90, 1.00)
7 Very good VG (0.90, 1.00, 1.00)
LVs and FSs (b) employed for assigning the weights of the criteria.
Linguistic variables Code Fuzzy sets
1 Extremely less Important ELI (0.00, 0.00, 0.11)
2 Strongly less important SLI (0.00, 0.11, 0.22)
3 Moderately less important MLI (0.11, 0.22, 0.33)
4 Weakly (Slightly) less important WLI (0.22, 0.33, 0.44)
5 Equally important EI ( 0.33, 0.44, 0.55)
6 Weakly (Slightly) more important WMI (0.44, 0.55, 0.66)
7 Moderately more important MMI (0.55, 0.66, 0.77)
8 Strongly more important SMI (0.66, 0.77, 0.88)
9 Extremely more important EMI (0.77, 0.88, 1.00)
242

8
243 2.2 Phase 2: Defining water reuse scenarios
244 Prior to defining water reuse scenarios, we considered two real case studies of water
245 reuse from different regions with different environmental, social, demographic, legislative
246 and technological conditions. The final ranking of the treatment trains can significantly
247 vary depending on these conditions. Here first, the geographical and environmental
248 situations in each scenario (region) are discussed. We then investigated the water reuse
249 legislation in both cases to ensure that the defined scenarios do not come into conflict
250 with local regulations (especially environmental).
251
252
253 2.2.1 Case study 1: Sao Paulo, Brazil
254 Sao Paulo Metropolitan Region (SPMR) is located in the east of Brazil (Figure S1 in the
255 SOM). The predominant climate is tropical-wet and it consists of 39 municipalities
256 aggregating approximately 20 million inhabitants, which is 48% of the state population,
257 (SEADE, 2012). Water reuse is becoming increasingly critical in Latin America,
258 especially in large, populous cities with water management having become a significant
259 challenge, mainly due to high rate of urbanisation that is not evenly distributed (Morihama
260 et al., 2011). In SPMR, water resources are traditionally provided by surface water
261 sources (91%), while groundwater sources are fundamental as a complement to the
262 (Coroado, 2012). In the early stages of regional development,
263 increased focus on quantity rather than quality resulted in deterioration in water quality.
264 As the implementation of water recycling and reuse schemes are currently of importance,
265 suitable and reliable WWT technologies should be implemented to ensure promotion and
266 protection of public health and the environment.
267
268 2.2.1.1 Water reuse legislation and guidelines in Sao Paulo, Brazil
269 Although no specific water reuse guidelines have been officially developed in Brazil,
270 there are few general policies related to water reuse; the most relevant one was passed
271 on November 2005 by the National Council of Water Resources, Resolution nº 54. This
272 regulation focuses only on the definitions of permitted water reuse categories and
273 general procedures for management of water reuse schemes; although no quality
274 standards were proposed.
275 There is a guideline from the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards, NBR 13, 969,
276 which does focus on water re-use applications in a few sections (ABNT, 1997). In
277 particular, Section 6 specifies general orientation for implementing local water reuse
278 schemes and also proposes four classes of non-potable water reuse, according to its
279 intended application. Comparing the local water quality standard in NBR 13,969 with

9
280 quality standards in other international guidelines (USEPA, 2012; WHO, 2017, 2006a),
281 this standard can hardly be accepted for any reuse application in urban areas. Due to
282 the growing rate of water consumption and increasing interest in water recycling and
283 reuse, a water reuse scheme was developed by Sabesp in 2002. It enforced SPMR to
284 use treated effluent for public place washing, parks, gardens, and sportive field irrigation,
285 and was regulated by Decree n° 44,128 (Sao Paulo, 2012), which states that the water
286 companies especially water suppliers should be consulted with regard to the standards
287 of the physical, chemical and microbiological properties of reused water (Coroado,
288 2012). In 2005, the Sao Paulo City Hall mandated a more comprehensive law in the
289 s and
290
291 In addition, many industries started to plan the implementation of water reuse schemes
292 by developing their own guidelines proposing specific quality standards. This approach
293 resulted in individual agreements among the reuse water users and suppliers. The most
294 remarkable agreement was the one between the AQUAPOLO Project and the CAPUAVA
295 Industrial Complex, which resulted in a reuse water quality standard that would only be
296 complied if advanced wastewater treatment technologies were applied. In this case the
297 restrictions imposed for the industries, because of fresh water scarcity challenges in the
298 SPMR and by the industries for the water suppliers, driven the decision-making process
299 for the definition of the final wastewater treatment arrangement using advanced
300 technologies.
301
302 2.2.1.2 Defining a scenario of water reuse application in Sao Paulo, Brazil
303 In SPMR, there are a number of water reuse projects and programmes - (e.g., Sabesp,
304 AQUAPOLO). In this study, we focused on the AQUAPOLO Project, which appears to
305 be a suitable one for testing and validating the IMCMEDM approach. AQUAPOLO is one
306 of the largest WWT plants in Latin America where 1 m3 s-1 of effluent is treated by
307 Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) units. It is then distributed to
308 the CAPUAVA petrochemical complex in Maua city (Ambiental, 2011). More information
309 on this case study is provided in the SOM (Table S1). This project aimed to establish
310 sustainable practices of water reuse (Coroado, 2012), and based on the fact that water
311 reuse practices have become critical for Sao Paulo, the following scenario was
312 considered: Scenario 1: WWT through advanced technologies (membrane-assisted) for
313 industrial water reuse, e.g., cooling towers.
314

10
315 2.2.2 Case study 2: Herakleion, Greece
316 The study focuses on Herakleion, which is the fourth largest city in Greece and is located
317 at the north of Crete. Crete is about 8,336 km2 with approximately 600,000 residents
318 (Figure S2 in the SOM). Greece is considered as a water-stressed country (EEA, 2005).
319 In the early 1990s, total water consumption was reported about 5,500 million m3 y-1, while
320 this amount increased to 7,150 million m3y-1 in 2000, indicating an increase of 3% each
321 year (EEA, 2005). Furthermore, fresh water resources are unevenly distributed with
322 some regions suffering from water scarcity particularly in summer due to low precipitation
323 and high demand (Tsagarakis et al., 2004). To tackle the problem, the country is
324 compelled to use alternative water resources alongside an appropriate water
325 management methods. To this end, an established framework for community action in
326 the field of water policy was introduced via the implantation of the European Union Water
327 Framework Directive (WFD) stating that for communities of more than 2,000 population
328 equivalent, collection and treatment (up to secondary treatment) of wastewater is
329 required.
330

331 2.2.2.1 Water reuse legislation and guidelines in Greece

332 In 2011, the Greek parliament adopted legislation (354B/2011) to exploit treated
333 wastewater as a renewable resource. Specifically, the legislation refers to the following
334 water reuse purposes (Greek Gazette, 2011): 1) WWT for irrigation including both
335 restricted and unrestricted irrigation, 2) recharge of underground aquifers and reduction
336 in seawater intrusion, 3) urban reuse, and 4) wastewater reuse for industrial activities.
337 According to Bixio et al., (2006), 23 million m3 d-1 of wastewater is reused in Greece,
338 representing around 10% of total WWT plant (WWTP) effluent. Freshwater, currently
339 used for agricultural purposes, can be retained for high-priority applications (Aggelides
340 et al., 2005).
341
342 2.2.2.1 Defining a scenario of water reuse application in Herakleion, Greece
343 The operation of Herakleion Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) started in 1996 and
344 it is going to operate until its environmental terms expire in June 2020. The WWTP,
345 currently serving the municipalities of Herakleion and Gazi, meets the demands of about
346 200,000 inhabitants. Domestic wastewater is primarily conveyed to the plant through the
347 sewerage system, whilst tanker trucks serve a small portion of the population (7,000
348 people). It is worth noting that the Herakleion plant is a municipal WWTP and does not
349 treat industrial wastewater (YPEKA, 2012).
350

11
351 The current WWTP includes the following units (EDEYA, 2015): screens (pore size: 9
352 mm), two units of aerated grit chambers, two Primary Sedimentation Tanks (PST), a
353 selection tank, five chambers and six agitators, two lines of two aerobic-anoxic tanks per
354 line, two Secondary Sedimentation Tanks (SST), and disinfection with NaOCl (15%) in
355 channels at the perimeter of SST, with treated effluent being discharged at sea (Kazos,
356 2013). Recently, an expansion of the WWTP has been proposed to help meet the
357 demands of an additional 30,000 people. The expansion will be based on membrane
358 technologies, in particular, MBRs are planned to be implemented (Kazos, 2013). The
359 redeveloped WWTP is going to treat 36,000 m3 d-1, corresponding to 194,000 people
360 (EDEYA, 2015). The expected characteristics of effluent after the adaptation are
361 provided in the SOM (Table S2). The following scenario is then defined for reuse of the
362 WWTP effluent in Herakleion: Scenario 2: WWT using membrane technology for
363 unrestricted agricultural irrigation in Herakleion.
364
365 2.3 Phase 3: Justification of the evaluation criteria
366 Depending on the water reuse scenario, the number of criteria and weights of each
367 selected criterion are different. Sweetapple et al., (2014) evaluated five criteria
368 (objectives) in their research, Joksimovic et al., (2006) considered eight criteria, Flores-
369 Alsina et al., (2008) and Sadr et al., (2016) considered nine, and finally Sadr et al., (2015)
370 employed ten criteria. However, regardless of the number of evaluation criteria, it is
371 imperative to consider the following aspects: (1) economic, (2) technical, (3) social and
372 (4) environmental. As this study implemented an improved version of MCMEDM model
373 developed by Sadr et al., 2015, similar evaluation criteria will be considered (See Figure
374 S3, in the SOM).
375
376 2.4 Phase 4: Justification of the WWT trains
377 Each WWT train comprises a number of unit processes, which can be categorised into
378 the four standard stages of treatment: 1) Primary Treatment (PT) 2) Secondary
379 Treatment (ST) 3) Tertiary Treatment (TT) and 4) Disinfection (DI). There are various
380 unit processes to be considered in each stage, therefore, a large number of WWT trains
381 can be formed by different unit processes. (2006) calculated the number of
382 possible WWT technologies for different water reuse purposes, e.g. 190 treatment trains
383 for irrigation re-use and 149 for indirect-potable water re-use. Considering the availability
384 of technologies and feasibility of their installation, operation and maintenance in the
385 targeted regions, ten WWT technologies have been shortlisted for the final evaluation by
386 the water re-use experts in this study (Figure 2).
387

12
388

389
390 Figure 2: Membrane assisted WWT trains shortlisted and employed in this study
391
392
393 2.5 Phase 5: Evaluation by water re-use experts
394 Based on the description and characteristics of the defined scenarios and the proposed
395 mathematical approach of the IMCMEDM, two questionnaires (as part of the IMCMEDM
396 tool) were prepared and distributed to a number of wastewater engineers and water
397 reuse experts (from both the academia and industry) in Brazil and Greece. The
398 participants were selected based on the contexts (scenarios) and their areas of
399 expertise. In this study, similar to many other TOPSIS-based GDM approaches, a
400 number of experts were invited (three in Scenario 1 and four in Scenario 2) and all
401 experts were regarded as equally qualified and competent (Agrawal et al., 2016;
402 Behzadian et al., 2012; Chen, 2001; Jaiswal and Mishra, 2017; Tavana and Hatami-
403 Marbini, 2011; Zyoud et al., 2016).
404 Expert responses were incorporated into the IMCMEDM tool to build decision-making
405 matrices for different scenarios (Phase 6). Table 2 illustrates the responses (in
406 Scenario 1) for the appraisal of WWT trains against different decision criteria. The colour-
407 coded ratings in Table 2 shows that generally the technology ratings (under each
408 criterion) are similar for all the experts. However, there were few disparities between the
409 given rates as well, for example, the rating of T5 against C8 (land requirement) were
410 different, where Experts 1, 2 and 3 assigned the rates of Good (G), Medium Poor (MP)
411 and Poor (P) to T5 respectively. On the other hand, the pair-wise comparison of the
412 decision criteria were more diverse among the experts as expected (see Tables S3 to

13
413 S9, in the SOM). This is due to the fact that each expert generally has different priorities
414 and preferences. Again this is where a powerful GDM, such as the proposed approach,
415 can merge the opinions into one decision matrix and help the decision makers
416 finalise a decision. General responses of the experts for comparison of technologies with
417 respect to each criterion for Scenario 2 are also colour-coded and summarised in the
418 SOM, Table S10.
419
420 3 Results and Discussion
421
422 3.1 Scenario 1: WWT through advanced technologies (membrane technology)
423 for industrial water reuse, e.g. cooling towers in Sao Paulo, Brazil
424 As this scenario is defined based on a successful project that is under operation for
425 several years, it is used here to validate the IMCMEDM model/tool. As mentioned in
426 Section 2.1, the ranking system is formed based on using Equation 14, with the
427 option with the highest value being the best technology (Figure 3(a)). For this scenario,
428 T2 (PT iMBR (anaerobic anoxic aerobic MF/UF) DI) and T7 (PT iMBR
429 (anoxic aerobic Microfiltration (MF)/Ultrafiltration (UF) Nanofiltration
430 (NF)/Reverse Osmosis (RO) DI) obtained the top CCs (0.3879 and 0.3835,
431 respectively) and therefore, they are identified as the preferred options. The least
432 preferred technology is T9 with a score of 0.3313.
433

434 The sequence of the closeness coefficients represents the main concerns in this
435 scenario observed by the experts in Brazil. Previous studies have reported emergent
436 concerns over the performance of conventional treatment technologies in terms of
437 removing emerging contaminants (Arriaga et al., 2016). The WWT train at AQUAPOLO
438 is comprised of preliminary treatment, PT, MBR, DI and RO. T7, the 2nd best technology,
439 is basically an MBR tailed by NF or RO, followed by DI. It is interesting that RO is
440 occasionally employed, for instance when total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration of
441 the effluent is very high. Considering occasional implementation of RO in AQUAPOLO,
442 T2, the 1st option selected by the IMCMEDM model, is very similar to the wastewater
443 technology configuration in AQUAPOLO.
444

14
450 The result can also be more extensively analysed by the criteria contribution bar chart
451 (Figure 3(b)). The dissimilarity of coloured bars illustrates that the technologies with high
452 CCs generally have high performance under different evaluation criteria. This means that
453 if an alternative obtains high rates (scores) for many or even all evaluation criteria, it is
454 most likely to be among the alternatives with the highest performance and rankings.
455 Figure 3(a) and 3(b) show that T1, T2 and T7 perform well whereas T5, T6, and T9 are
456 shown to be the least preferred technologies. All the preferred alternatives have smaller
457 footprint, which is mainly attributed to the exclusion of sedimentation tanks (ST). T7 is
458 shown to perform well in contaminant removal (C10). In spite of its low contribution in
459 CAPEX (C1), OPEX (C2) and energy consumption (C3), T7 is shown to be the 2nd best
460 solution as it performs well under C4, C5, and C10.
461

462 3.2 Scenario 2: WWT using membrane technologies for unrestricted agricultural
463 irrigation in Herakleion, Greece
464
465 In this scenario, treatment systems were evaluated against the defined criteria. Figure
466 4(a) illustrates that T3 and T4, which both are Conventional Activated Sludge Processes
467 (CASP), obtain the highest CCs (0.3594 and 0.3441, respectively). T6 received the
468 lowest score of 0.1843. It can be inferred that the experts believe that CASP are reliable
469 and effective enough in terms of contaminant removal for non-potable water reuse
470 purposes with similar WWT trains having already been suggested in previous studies
471 and projects ( Norton-Brandão et al., 2013; Judd and Judd, 2011; Melin et al., 2006).
472 Figure 4(b) shows that T3 and T4 are the preferred technologies, whilst T6 is the least
473 preferred. T3 and T4 perform well with respect to C1, C2, and C3. T5, T7, T9 and T10
474 are considered as technologies with high OPEX; this is mainly associated with high
475 energy consumption of NF/RO. These technologies are also characterised by large
476 footprint and high investment (capital) expenditure.
477
478 T2 consists of fewer treatment unit processes (compared to the other WWT
479 technologies), which resulted in a smaller footprint. It is noteworthy that, although T5
480 does not perform well under C1 and C2, it does show high performance within the rest
481 of the evaluation criteria and therefore, it is among the technologies with the best
482 performance. T5, a technology leading to very high effluent quality, attained high score
483 reflecting the water quality concerns that are associated with human health and
484 environmental issues. Hence, T5 should be considered in locations with relatively high
485 environmental awareness and willingness to pay. The results of this scenario pointed

17
486 that participants from Greece do not consider MBR as their 1st option, in particular, when
487 CASP are available.
488
489 3.3 Sensitivity analysis
490 It can be seen in the results provided in Sections 3.1 and 3.2 that generally the closeness
491 coefficients were relatively lower in Scenario 1 compared to those in Scenario 2. This
492 shows that the performances of the WWT trains are generally closer to that of the ideal
493 solution (defined based on the TOPSIS approach) in Scenario 2. The closeness
494 coefficient values of each alternative very much depend on the experts preference and
495 priorities, which are defined based on both the context and opinions and
496 interests. To this end, in order to explore the sensitivity of the values of closeness
497 coefficient (i.e. the distance of each alternative from the ideal solution with respect to
498 different criteria) to changes in the experts weightings, a two-at-a-time sensitivity
499 analysis was performed in both Scenarios 1 and 2. The sensitivity analysis was focused
500 on the weights of the evaluation criteria (namely: C1: capital cost; C2: O & M Cost; C3:
501 energy consumption; C4: environmental Impact; C5: community acceptance; C6:
502 adaptability; C7: ease of construction and deployment; C8: land requirement; C9: level
503 of complexity and C10: water quality). The overall weight of each criterion were changed
504 by ±20% in each scenario (see Figure 5).
505 Figure 5 and Figure S4 (in the SOM) shows that the closeness coefficients in Scenario
506 1 are more sensitive to changes in criteria weightings compared to those in Scenario 2.
507 The highest sensitivity in Scenario 1 can be seen for T8 (PT + Chemically Enhanced
508 Primary Treatment (CEPT) + MF/UF + DI), which was among the least preferred
509 technologies in this scenario; this was observed when C5 (i.e. community acceptance)
510 was changed (see Figures S12 and S13, in the SOM). This is due to the fact that all the
511 s generally lower than the rates of
512 other technologies with respect to this criteria (see Table 2). The least sensitivity in
513 Scenario 1 was seen in (+0.050 and -0.034), whilst
514 the highest was observed in that of T8 (+0.248 and -0.115). In Scenario 2, T3 (+0.250
515 and -0.215) and T6 (+0.189 and -0.150), respectively, showed the highest sensitivity to
516 the changes of criteria weights. In this scenario, closeness coefficients were significantly
517 impacted by the variation in C1; where sensitivity to the (simultaneous) alteration of C1
518 - C6, C1 C7 and C1 C2 presented the highest changes among the others, whereas,
519 in Scenario 1, alterations of C10 resulted the highest variations in the result; for example,
520 A simultaneous increase in the weights of C10 and C6 (20% each) increased closeness
521 coefficients by 0.072 (on average).

18
522 The variations and differences shown in the sensitivity analysis of Scenario 1 and
523 Scenario 2 support the fact that the results of such GDM tools, to a certain extent, depend
524 . Therefore, the process of selecting experts is
525 of high importance as to determine how suitable or relevant their expertise is; this
526 introduces a new approach in which a weight is assigned to each expert (based on their
527 knowledge and experience or some other factors) in the group decision making process
528 (Pang et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2017; Yue, 2012). However, this is out of the scope of
529 the current study, but would be a good addition for future research. In this study, similar
530 to several other GDM approaches (Agrawal et al., 2016; Behzadian et al., 2012; Kalbar
531 et al., 2013; Ren and Liang, 2017), all experts were regarded as equally important and
532 pertinent. The design of the survey (questionnaire) or the tool (which contains the survey)
533 would have meaningful impacts on the results of the study (Bowling, 2005; Jonker and
534 Kosse, 2009; Nardi, 2018).
535
536
537
538
539
540
541

542

543

544

545

546

547

548

549

550

19
553

554
T1 Primary treatment + iMBR (Aerobic treatment + MF/UF) + Disinfection
T2 Primary treatment + iMBR (Anaerobic + Anoxic + Aerobic + MF/UF) + Disinfection
T3 Primary treatment + CASP (Anoxic + Aerobic) + MF/UF + Disinfection
T4 Primary treatment + CASP (Anaerobic + Anoxic + Aerobic) + MF/UF + Disinfection
T5 Primary treatment + CASP (Anaerobic + Anoxic + Aerobic) + MF/UF + NF/RO + Disinfection
T6 Primary treatment + Anaerobic treatment + MF/UF + Disinfection
T7 Primary treatment + iMBR (Anoxic + Aerobic + MF/UF) + NF/RO + Disinfection
T8 Primary treatment + Chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) + MF/UF + Disinfection
T9 Primary treatment + Chemically Enhanced Primary Treatment (CEPT) + MF/UF + NF/RO + Disinfection
Primary treatment + Coagulation/flocculation + sand filtration + MF/UF + NF/RO + Disinfection (Chlorination
T10
+UV)

555
556 Figure 5: Sensitivity of closeness coefficients in each scenario to a two-at-a-time
557 alteration of criteria weights (±20%) for the wastewater treatment trains evaluated in this
558 study
559

560 4 Conclusions and Implications

561 Modifications and improvements were made to the MCMEDM model that has been
562 previously presented by Sadr et al. in 2015. The new improved model (IMCMEDM) was
563 incorporated into a decision support tool with a user-friendly GUI. The tool, which
564 integrates TOPSIS with AHP, provided a ranking system for comparing WWT trains in
565 terms of their performance. Two scenarios of water reuse and WWT in the contexts of
566 Brazil and Greece were proposed with respect to ten criteria in order to select reliable
567 options within a set of ten pre-shortlisted WWT trains. The decision-making process was

21
568 first conducted by the development and distribution of two questionnaires to a number of
569 participants from different areas of expertise from both academia and the industry. Then,
570 the collected data formed the decision matrices used in the IMCMEDM tool. Hence, the
571 tool provides a streamlined and robust framework in order to guide decision makers in
572 the decision process. Notably, the contributions of designated experts in the field is
573 formalised and thus standardised. This fact renders the decision process significantly
574 less vulnerable to personal bias as long as an appropriate (or a manageable) number of
575 experts is involved. Furthermore, the user-friendly GUI levels an important barrier for
576 implementation by policy decision makers. A first scenario regarding water reuse in Sao
577 Paulo, Brazil, was proposed based on an existing industrial water reuse project to
578 validate the tool. The results of this scenario coincided with the project in Sao Paulo.
579 Next, a second scenario that focussed on water reuse applications in Greece was
580 investigated and it showed that CASPs are still more prevalent than MBRs in this region.
581 This represents a clear evidence that technology preference very much depends upon
582 the context, and/or pertains to the socio-technical background of the decision makers. It
583 thus highlights the importance of consulting with local experts in order to cover the social
584 and regulatory context appropriately. It also confirms the fact that selecting the panel of
585 decision makers is an important process.
586 In both scenarios, the participants assigned the highest weights for capital cost,
587 operation and maintenance cost, and energy consumption. Although we observed that
588 criteria weighing of the above criteria were rather independent from the two presented
589 scenarios, we expect that criteria ranking depends on the location in general (i.e. footprint
590 is more restricting in urban context). Hence, future work will extend the scenario settings
591 to rural areas in order to account for that. Future work will concentrate on further
592 application of this flexible tool to different sets of evaluation criteria, WWT technologies
593 and contexts.
594 In this study, technologies were relatively assessed with respect to different criteria (e.g.
595 CAPEX, OPEX and energy consumption). Future studies can incorporate the results of
596 more-in-depth cost assessment and life cycle assessment into this tool. Such attempts
597 would give decision makers more confidence in the results of the tool. Having
598 investigated the process of decision making and technology selection for water reuse
599 schemes in different contexts with distinct regulations and different geographical,
600 environmental, economic and demographic situations, the outcomes of this piece of
601 research would contribute substantively to the application of WWT technologies
602 (especially membrane assisted technologies) for different water reuse scenarios.
603
604

22
605 Acknowledgements
606 The authors would like to acknowledge all the water reuse experts from Greece and
607 Brazil who participated in the surveys. The authors are particularly thankful to The
608 Environmental Odebrecht (Brazil) for providing data to the AQUAPOLO Project.
609
610
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