Prioritizing urban water loss prevention strategies using a multi-criteria decision-making framework: A case study of Istanbul
Urban Climate, cilt.68, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 68
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103071
- Dergi Adı: Urban Climate
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, INSPEC
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Multi-criteria decision-making, Network optimization, Rainwater harvesting, SUDS, Water reclamation systems
- İstanbul Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Urban water systems in rapidly growing metropolitan areas face mounting pressure from rising demand, climate variability, and infrastructure limitations. Istanbul exemplifies this challenge, with increasing water consumption, fluctuating reservoir storage, and recurring periods of critically low capacity, highlighting growing vulnerability. This study combines empirical characterization of urban water security conditions with an expert-based multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework to evaluate strategies to reduce water losses and improve urban water management. Four strategies: network optimization, water reclamation and reuse, rainwater harvesting, and sustainable urban drainage systems were assessed using nine economic, technical, environmental, and social criteria derived from the normalized mean scores of 18 experts representing academia (n = 8), engineering and consultancy firms (n = 6), and professional chambers and NGOs (n = 4). Results indicate that rainwater harvesting is the most effective option with the highest TOPSIS score (0.7273), followed by network optimization (0.4667), water reclamation and reuse (0.3118), and sustainable urban drainage systems (0.2894). This ranking reflects strong performance across cost, feasibility, and environmental considerations. Sensitivity, uncertainty, Monte Carlo, and scenario-based weighting analyses confirmed the robustness of the prioritization under both expert-judgement variability and alternative policy priorities. The results emphasize the importance of decentralized, demand-side approaches in addressing urban water stress under increasing hydroclimatic variability and reduced supply reliability. The proposed framework links empirical water security characterization with expert-based MCDM and robustness analyses, providing a practical decision-support tool for prioritizing urban water management strategies in rapidly growing metropolitan regions.