Possibilistic construction of fuzzy outranking relation for multiple-criteria ranking

A multiple-criteria method for ranking actions with uncertain evaluations is presented. The uncertain evaluations are modelled by fuzzy numbers. To compare fuzzy evaluations, four different measures using possibility and necessity concepts are applied. Their aggregation is based on fuzzy connectives with a controlled compensatory behaviour. The desirable degree of compensation is controlled by the decision maker who can move between two extremes: no compensation and full compensation. The aggregation leads to a new definition of concordance and discordance indices. In order to rank actions, a valued outranking relation is constructed via concordance-discordance tests and then exploited using the usual distillation procedure of ELECTRE III. A final partial preorder results from the exploitation procedure. An illustrative example shows the application of the method to a ground water management system.