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Computational Ecology and Software, 2012, 2(4): 213-219
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Article

WORTHY: a new model for ecological ranking and evaluation

Alessandro Ferrarini
Department of Evolutionary and Functional Biology, University of Parma, Via G. Saragat 4, I-43100 Parma, Italy

Received 27 August 2012;Accepted 30 September 2012;Published online 1 December 2012
IAEES

Abstract
Ecological ranking and environmental decision making require that a set of objects (e.g., competing sites for species introduction, or alternative sites for the allocation of man-made features) are listed from the best to the worst one. The resulting ranking is then used to choose which actions to implement; worse and intermediate solutions are immediately excluded, while optimal and sub-optimal solutions are taken into account, discussed and then applied. In this paper, WORTHY is presented as a new model for ecological ranking and evaluation of competing alternatives based on a set of weighted criteria. I have developed WORTHY model with the goal of employing a TOPSIS-like algorithm for worthy solutions in situations of environmental and ecological conflict management. Compared to TOPSIS algorithm, WORTHY allows to: a) decide the type of normalization, b) build an user-defined decision function, c) perform what-if analysis and d) sensitivity analysis.

Keywords competing alternatives;decision making;sensitivity analysis;TOPSIS-like algorithm;user-defined decision function;what-if analysis.

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