A Sustainability Framework for Small Systems: a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Approach to Evaluating Drinking Water Treatment Alternatives

Many small drinking water treatment systems face a wide range of technical, managerial, and financial issues, in addition to the need for effective decision support in selecting appropriate drinking water technologies. This research presents a sustainability framework to aid small systems in the selection of appropriate drinking water technologies. The framework is intended to improve the long-term economic, environmental, and social sustainability of small systems through a multi-criteria decision analysis approach. The sustainability framework accounts for cost (e.g., capital, O&M), lifecycle environmental impacts (i.e., carbon footprint), health risks (e.g., DBPs) and stakeholder preferences (i.e., level of operator expertise, controls/automation required, etc.). Additionally, the framework can be used to engage multiple stakeholders involved in the decision-making process (i.e., engineers, operators, regulators, etc.). Both analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and weighted decision matrix (WDM) are used to evaluate of sustainability of drinking water treatment alternatives and this paper highlight trade-offs among different treatment alternatives.