Multi-criteria Decision Making and GIS Techniques in the Design of a Stream Gauging Network

The design of a proper stream gauging network is a requirement in order to obtain accurate flow information, important for various purposes such as water resources management, flood forecasting and climate change impact assessment. Therefore, while it is necessary to minimise the number of stations in terms of feasibility and cost, the most suitable locations should be defined. In this context, this paper presents a GIS-based multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) for stream gauging network design. The proposed approach incorporates various criteria, while criteria weights were estimated for three scenarios regarding hierarchy using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the fuzzy AHP (FAHP), in order to illustrate the impact of the selected method to the design. GIS-based MCDM may contribute to the station network design, as a way to minimise the necessary field exploration. Finally, it is observed that different design scenarios and criteria number affect the location suitability score.