Multi-criterion decision making for selecting municipal wastewater treatment technology in Metro Manila Philippines

• Main Authors: Orbecido, Aileen H., Promentilla, Michael Angelo B., Almendrala, Michelle C.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Multiple criteria decision making; Sewage—Purification—Philippines—Metro Manila; Chemical Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/9332
• Institution: De La Salle University

The Philippines aims to increase the coverage of areas with wastewater treatment technologies to provide sustainable wastewater management solution particularly in its most populated area, Metro Manila, the capital of the Philippines. This involves selection of appropriate wastewater treatment technology that would minimize the discharge of untreated wastewater into bodies of water. The selection of the appropriate technology requires the assessment and evaluation of multiple criteria which may be qualitative and/or quantitative in nature. This study thus proposes a decision framework based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to structure the selection problem systematically and to conduct the selection in a more transparent and rational manner. It also allows the decision-maker to quantify his value judgment through pairwise comparisons between criteria and between alternatives. The methodology is demonstrated utilizing a case study on the comparison of wastewater treatment options for municipal wastewater. This paper considered three secondary treatment technologies, namely, Conventional Activated Sludge (CAS), Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) and Membrane Bioreactor (MBR). These technologies were then evaluated using 4 criteria: technical aspect, environmental aspect, cost, and ease-to-upgrade. Among the four criteria considered, the technical and ease-to-upgrade criteria are based on the subjective evaluation of a domain expert in the wastewater treatment technology. The two other criteria are based on quantitative values obtained from literature and technology suppliers. The results showed that CAS is the most preferred option after incorporating the value judgments of decision maker.