Multi Criteria Decision Making in Selecting Stormwater Management Green Infrastructure for Industrial Areas Part 1: Stakeholder Preference Elicitation

Green Infrastructure (GI) practices are well known strategies which are used for the source control of stormwater generated from urban land uses. However, unlike other urban land uses, industrial areas are land use types which need special attention in selecting the most suitable GI among several practices available for the stormwater management due to the certain environmental considerations. The decision making in selecting the stormwater management GI practices for an industrial area involves environmental, economic and social objectives which are represented by various performance measures. When identifying these performance measures, the opinions of stakeholders play a major role for the successful implementation of GI. This paper (part 1 of 2 part series of papers) presents the results of a stakeholder preference elicitation process carried out through a four rounded Delphi survey to identify the performance measures and obtain their weights for the decision making of GI for industrial areas. The SWING weighting method was embedded within the Delphi survey process to elicit the weights for various performance measures. The experts have identified the total runoff volume reduction as the most important performance measure in selecting a suitable GI for industrial areas. The results obtained from the Delphi survey series showed a good degree of consensus and has proven to be a valuable tool for the decision making in GI selection, for industrial areas. The stakeholder preference elicitation presented in this paper is a part of a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) conducted to identify the most suitable stormwater management GI practices for an industrial area.