An Application of Fuzzy-VIKOR Method in Environmental Impact Assessment of the Boog Mine Southeast of Iran

Mining activities are one of the essential environmental challenges. Rating the environmental components (ECs) that affect by mining activities is a strategic guide for Environmental-Impact-Assessment (EIA). VlseKriterijumska- Optimizacija- I- Kompromisno- Resenje (VIKOR) method is developed as an efficient decision-making method to assess the impacts of the granite quarry Boog (in Southeast of Iran) on the environment. VIKOR method focuses on quantifying the effect of each impacting factor (IF) on each designed EC. This paper represents an evaluation method relying on fuzzy numbers in decision methods to carry out the lack of certainty and ambiguity from experts’ subjective knowledge and experience. Shannon entropy theory is used to adjust subjective weights defined by decision makers to objective weights. The results catched through ranking the R, S and Q indices. In this case, the Air quality (R= 0.05, S= 0.16, Q= -0.05) is available as the more important EC that affected by the mining activities contaminations. Compareing the results with standard matrix method confirm that the Air quality has been effected more than the other parameters with 33.63%. Fuzzy-VIKOR is a systematic approach, which can easily extend to deal with quantitative environmental analysis and other mining engineering selection problems.