Mahjouri Maryam, Ishak Mohd Bakri, Torabian Ali, Manaf Latifah Abd, Halimoon Normala
1Department of Environmental Planning and Management, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia.
2Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Environment, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
J Environ Health Sci Eng. 2018 Jun 18;16(2):181-192. doi: 10.1007/s40201-018-0306-6. eCollection 2018 Dec.
Environmental policies should be developed in a contextual decision-making process regarding local environmental concerns emphasizing the economic, technical, social and institutional considerations. Establishing emission limit levels, especially in the industrial sector, is one of the most problematic environmental issues in developing countries, for which it is essential to include several criteria that reflect their country-specific constraints and capacities. Since Best Available Technology (BAT) is acknowledged to be the reference element for sustainable development and a basis for Emissions Limit Values (ELVs), the objective of this study is to present a reliable methodology for establishing ELVs thresholds with an emphasis on the BAT concept for national regulation at the sector level.
A hybrid fuzzy multiple-criteria decision-making (FMCDM) process, consisting of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (fuzzy TOPSIS) method, is structured to aggregate the different criteria and rank different ELV alternatives in this complicated evaluation. In order to use the most profound knowledge and judgment of a professional expert team, this qualitative assessment highlights the importance of supportive information.
The results obtained indicate that experts have considered the country-specific information as a reliable reference in their decisions. Among different key evaluation criteria in effluent standard setting, the highest experts' priority is "Environmental protection". For both the conventional and toxic pollutants, the influence of all other criteria namely "Economic feasibility", "Technology viability" and "Institutional capacity", as constraining criteria in developing countries, have not reduced the responsibility towards the environmental objectives. In ELVs ranking, experts have made their decisions with respect to the specific characteristics of each pollutant and the existing capacities and constraints of the country, without emphasizing on any specific reference.
This systematic and transparent approach has resulted in defensible country-specific ELVs for the Iron and Steel industry, which can be developed for other sectors. As the main conclusion, this paper demonstrates that FMCDM is a robust tool for this comprehensive assessment especially regarding the data availability limitations in developing countries.
环境政策应在针对当地环境问题的情境决策过程中制定，强调经济、技术、社会和制度方面的考虑因素。设定排放限值水平，尤其是在工业部门，是发展中国家最具问题的环境问题之一，为此纳入反映其国家特定限制和能力的若干标准至关重要。由于最佳可得技术（BAT）被公认为可持续发展的参考要素和排放限值（ELV）的基础，本研究的目的是提出一种可靠的方法来确定ELV阈值，重点是用于部门层面国家监管的BAT概念。
构建了一种混合模糊多标准决策（FMCDM）过程，由层次分析法（AHP）和模糊理想解相似排序法（模糊TOPSIS）组成，以汇总不同标准并在这个复杂的评估中对不同的ELV替代方案进行排序。为了利用专业专家团队最深刻的知识和判断，这种定性评估突出了支持性信息的重要性。
获得的结果表明，专家们在决策中已将国家特定信息视为可靠的参考。在废水排放标准设定的不同关键评估标准中，专家们的最高优先级是“环境保护”。对于常规污染物和有毒污染物，所有其他标准，即“经济可行性”、“技术可行性”和“制度能力”，作为发展中国家的限制标准，并没有减轻对环境目标的责任。在ELV排名中，专家们根据每种污染物的具体特征以及国家现有的能力和限制做出决策，而没有强调任何特定的参考。
这种系统且透明的方法为钢铁行业得出了可辩护的国家特定ELV，也可用于其他部门。作为主要结论，本文表明FMCDM是进行这种全面评估的有力工具，特别是考虑到发展中国家的数据可用性限制。
