A Method Proposal for Evaluation of the Performance of Water Quality Monitoring Networks and Application in Gediz River Basin

Water quality monitoring network design, evaluation and improvement problem is still investigated due to challenges and uncertainties such monitoring continuity, frequency, location and temporal changes in monitoring objectives. Regarding these issues, design and improvement of monitoring networks require multi-criteria evaluation and adaptation of the system to the temporal changes in monitoring objectives. Due to the complex nature of this problem, there is no exact solution yet. Many previous studies employed multi-criteria optimization and decision-making methodologies, however, it is revealed that the elicitation of importance and weighting coefficients assigned to criteria affect the decisions given for the monitoring networks. The presented study aims to evaluate the performance of these networks through the utilization of a multi-criteria decision-making method called “Reference Point Approach”, which does not necessitate the assignment of these weights. The method is applied to Gediz Basin and station based network performance is assessed through the use of observations between the years of 1985 and 2000 regarding the existing monitoring objectives, afterward, the obtained results are compared with the outcomes of the TüB？TAK-YDABAG-100Y102 project, which employed Dynamic Programming Approach. The obtained results indicate that the outcomes of both methods are compatible to a certain degree. This indication reveals that reference point approach is useful in providing reliable results