Multicriteria Planning of PostEarthquake Sustainable Reconstruction

Abstract: A multicriteria model is developed for analyz-ing the planning strategies for reducing the future social and economic costs in the area with potential natural hazard. The developed multicriteria decision-making pro-cedure consists of generating alternatives, establishing cri-teria, assessment of criteria weights, and application of the compromise ranking method (VIKOR). The alternatives are the scenarios of sustainable hazard effects mitigation, gen-erated in the form of comprehensive reconstruction plans, including the redevelopment of urban areas and infrastruc-tures, multipurpose land use, and restrictions on building in hazardous areas. The plans have to be evaluated accord-ing to the criteria representing public safety, sustainability, social environment, natural environment, economy, culture, and politics. The multicriteria model can treat all rele-vant conflicting effects and impacts in their representa-tive units. The evaluation of alternatives is implicated with imprecision (or uncertainty) of established criteria, and the fuzzy multicriteria model is developed to deal with “qual-itative ” (unquantifiable or linguistic) or incomplete infor-mation. The application of this model is illustrated with the post-earthquake reconstruction problem in Central Tai-wan, including the restoration concerning the safe and ser-*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail