An application of TOPSIS method to rank the US states based on recent toxic release of priority chemicals

摘要

Keeping the balance between industrial development and environmental protection is always a challenge for every country around the world. Thus, there is an increased interest in environmental assessment based on chemical pollution. The 33/50 program addresses 17 toxic chemicals whose release can cause serious human disease and environmental pollution. In this article, we focus on the extent of air, land and water pollution in each US state. From a practical point of view, it is unlikely that a single state can be optimum under all selected criteria. Therefore, an advanced statistical technique needs to be used in the evaluation process. Our goal in this paper is to rank the US states based on the recent toxic Toxic Release Inventory data, by applying a specific multiple criteria decision-making procedure called Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution(TOPSIS) method. Due to the variations among the sources under each evaluation criterion, entropy weights of these three criteria were obtained and then incorporated into the TOPSIS technique to calculate an overall ‘composite index’ for the US states to arrive at their individual rankings.