Hybrid Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach to Choose the Best Treatment Process to Remove Pesticides from Drinking Water Sources: Diuron and Cypermethrin

Abstract Overuse of pesticides in the agriculture sector has resulted in many problems related to human health and environmental issues. Most of the pesticides reach aquatic bodies through agricultural runoff, transportation through air, and seepage through the soil. To lessen the hazards pesticide usage poses to the environment and public health, pesticides must be removed from drinking water sources. Today, choosing the best treatment process is a difficult challenge for water authorities, especially in developing nations because of its complexity. This study proposes a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which combines the order preference technique similar to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) and the VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) to choose the most appropriate method for pesticide removal in drinking water treatment. The goal of this approach is to prioritize and choose treatment options for different pesticide groups. To represent different pesticide groups, diuron, and cypermethrin were selected based on toxicity, worldwide occurrence, persistence, and physicochemical properties. The results of all MCDM techniques show that nanofiltration is the best alternative for diuron removal and granular activated carbon adsorption is the most appropriate process for cypermethrin removal. Hybrid MCDM techniques is the best method to choose the treatment technologies to comply with technical, financial, and environmental requirements. The assessment of pesticide removal methods using hybrid AHP/MCDM approach has never been performed before in drinking water treatment, and it has been shown to be a promising way for ranking treatment processes for pesticides.