Page 213 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

10.4 Application of MADM in LCSA 211
including economic, social, and environmental aspects. Transportation impacts have consid-
ered additional impacts due to intermediate treatment of bottom ash and associated transport
of materials of intermediate treatment. In another study, Steen and Palander (2016) attempt to
identify safeguard subjects of critical resources and state indicators for LCSA. The study iden-
tifies transport technology as a major safeguard subject and associated transport capacity
and transport efficiency as state indicators, therefore, state and central institutions provide
incentives to promote costly transport technologies. Onat et al. (2016) conducted a study
on assessing sustainable performance of alternative vehicle technologies considering
a two-step approach. The first step includes use of microlevel indicators for environmental,
economic, and social aspects to develop sustainability assessment model; and in the second
step, TOPSIS is used to amalgamate results from the model to develop a final decision.

10.4.3 Water

Another area of infrastructure where studies with integrated application of MADM and
LCSA methods are conducted is in the domain of water. Balkema et al. (2002) conducted
a study to select wastewater treatment systems and integrated all three aspects of economic,
social, and environment to develop a framework highlighting a selected set of sustainability
indicators with trade-off between the indicators. On the other hand, Kalbar et al. (2016)
attempt to compare technologies of wastewater treatment using a scenario-based decision-
making tool. The study developed a tool named “TechSelect 1.0,” which uses an LCSA frame-
work in combination with TOPSIS methodology, while Opher et al. (2018) conducted a study
to examine potential of reusing domestic wastewater. The study took input from 20 experts on
multiple scenarios of domestic wastewater reuse. AHP method is used for estimating weights
of sustainability indicators in an LCSA framework. In another study, Godskesen et al. (2018)
attempted to identify a suitable technology for water supply in Copenhagen. The study
integrated LCC and LCA estimates for multiple scenarios and weights of indicators from
the AHP method.

10.4.4 Energy

Energy sectors involve taking decisions in areas such as energy management, selection
of energy source, or form of energy output, which can produce either lower environmental
impacts, social impacts, and economic viability, or all of them. A study was conducted by
Martı ´nez-Blanco et al. (2014) over agricultural energy source with all three components
of LCSA (SLCA, LCA, and LCC) taken into consideration. The study suggested that geo-
graphical scale variations, assessment method, and indicator selection are major hurdles
in the evaluation of SLCA. Similarly, difficulties in evaluation of SLCA are highlighted
by Kunifuji et al. (2016), who integrated ELECTRE and LCA to compare power stations that
operate on wind and thermal energy from North-East Brazil. In another study, LCSA of
the electricity sector in Turkey is introduced by Atilgan and Azapagic (2016), in which three
electricity alternatives (geothermal, hydro, and wind) are compared based on six social,
eleven environmental, and three economic indicators. MADM method is used to consider
all three aspects of sustainability simultaneously, and results indicate hydro-power to be