IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2014) 5-1

Research article
erdApplication of Analytical Hierarchical Process Method to
Select a Technology Option in Rural Settings
TUNG NGUYEN NHU*International University - Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Email: nntung@hcmiu.edu.vn
Received 29 October 2013

Accepted 1 March 2014(*Corresponding Author)

Abstract Selection of an appropriate technology in rural settings in developing countries
contributes to the effective use of the scarce resources of the community and thesustainability of the system using that technology. Literature review shows thatappropriate selected technologies suit difficult conditions of poor people, lessen theirfinancial burdens, increase productivity and create wealth. This paper also introduces theapplication of Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) method in making decision ontechnology in rural settings. The eight-step process of AHP method is demonstrated with
an illustration example of rural water supply investment based on the alternatives, criteria
and priorities as judged. This new model, an application of mathematical methodology insocial choice, would correct the shortcomings of other decision rules and improve thequality of decision-making process of a community in their initiatives to improve theirlivelihoods.
Keywords rural development, technology selection, analytical hierarchical process

INTRODUCTION
Nowadays about three quarters of 780 million people are drinking unsafe water and two thirds ofthis number are living in Africa and Asia (UNICEF, 2012). In order to achieve the Millennium
Development Goal for Water Supply and Sanitation of the United Nations, more efforts need to bemade to provide safe water to rural communities in these two continents. Fortunately, this mission
is likely to be realized, at least in terms of technology as nowadays there are many watertechnology options, both traditional and modern. A collection of most recent water treatment
technologies include solar water disinfection, coagulants/flocculants, ultraviolet treatment, reverse
osmosis, ultra filtration, nanofiltration, to name some (Dalberg, 2013). Beside those advancedtechnologies, people can use traditional water treatment methods such as boiling water,
chlorination, sand filters and ceramic filters. For each technology application, there is acorresponding type of water supply. Current popular types include piped water distribution, handpump well, rainwater guttering system which can be used in rural areas (Mekong Delta WaterProject). Before selection of technology and water distribution type, it is important to know what
community wants. How to relate the community’s wants or criteria to technology options for
optimal selection requires a quantitative decision model. This paper introduces the application of
Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) technique for this purpose because the requirements for its
application are met with available options and predictable criteria. With many choices presented,
communities have great opportunities to make informed decision in a suitable water supply model
to improve their health and even further, increase farming and irrigation productivity hence raise
their income. Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) technique is presented as a quantitativedecision technique in many operations research books and journal papers. The key to this method ispairwise comparison between alternatives in respect to each criteria and these comparisons areorganized in the structural form of tree branches. The final goal is to calculate a weighted scoretotal for each alternative and select the most optimal alternative. Saaty (1990) introduced clear
basic guidelines for this calculation. Following him, some scholars proposed an extended AHN
method, or fuzzy AHN technique (Abdel-Kader and Dugdale, 2001, Ertugrul Karsak and Tolga,Ⓒ ISERD154

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2014) 5-1

2001, Ordoobadi, 2012). The extended AHP method supplemented the short comings of failing todiscuss uncertainties or risks in determining values for each alternative. Applications of AHN
techniques can be found in much literature on investment selection, portfolio plans, technology
choice, vendor or provider selection.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the application of Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP)
method in a decision on water technology in rural settings. This is a multi-criteria decision-making
process which requires eight steps, as described in the next sections. A rural water technology isrecommended as a result of applying this method given judgment values provided by top experts.
The limitation of this presented calculation is that its outputs are only accurate in casepairwise comparison is perfectly consistent. In practice, pairwise comparison is not perfectlyconsistent. Actually, consistency ratio should be calculated in any AHP matrices, whose calculation
is explained in the work of Saaty (Saaty, 1990). The scope of this paper does not include theinconsistency ratio.
METHODOLOGY
Basic AHP methods are explained in the work of Nydick and Hill (1992). He showed calculationtables to describe step by step to reach to the final aggregated score for each supplier. Saaty (1990)
listed AHP method steps as follows: 1 - identify potential alternatives; 2 - identify and classify
selection criteria; 3 - Identify criteria/alternatives interdependence; 4 - Construct AHP Model; 5 Perform pairwise comparisons to determine criteria priorities; 6 - Perform pairwise comparison todetermine alternative priorities with respect to each criterion; 7 - Determine overall priority foreach alternative; 8 - Select the technology alternative with the highest priority.
To illustrate this paper with a simple example, a list of three key criteria normally used forrural water supply technology selection, extracted from literature, is used. Next, from reading
technical assessment on community-level water supply, three emerging rural water technology
alternatives are selected based on the recommendations by water experts (Dalberg, 2013). They aresolar water disinfection, coagulant/flocculants treatment and reverse osmosis. After the criteria andalternatives have been identified, top experts in rural water supply have been contacted for giving
judgment values to the alternatives and criteria. This qualitative approach is called “jury ofexecutive opinion” where the opinions of a small group of high-level managers are good enoughfor decision (Render, Stair, & Hanna, 2009). From personal working relationship, a UNICEF topwater engineer and a former team leader of Mekong Delta Project Rural Water Project have beenasked to answer the questionnaire using the survey website www.surveymonkey.com. Both of themworked as top experts in an Australia-funded water project in Mekong Delta. The team leader, whois a water engineer with more than 30 years of experience in rural water supply has responded. Inthe questionnaire, the respondent is asked to judge the importance level of each water technology
and each criteria. The questionnaire uses 5-point Likert scale: 1 = very unimportant; 2 =unimportant; 3 = neutral; 4 = important; 5 = very important for criteria importance weights and 1 =very poor; 2 = poor; 3 = average; 4 = good; 5 = very good for other questions.
ILLUSTRATION EXAMPLE AND RESULTS
Let’s consider the following case. Suppose that a social enterprise wants to select an appropriatetechnology option to supply water to a community in rural Mekong Delta. This example excludes
water provision at the individual household level hence eliminate technologies for this level
including chlorination, sand filters, ceramic filters. A preliminary technical assessment filters out
three technologies suitable to local conditions are solar water disinfection, coagulant/flocculants
treatment and reverse osmosis. The overall objective is to identify the best technology which hasⒸ ISERD

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IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2014) 5-1

the highest evaluation score. Note that comparison values in the tables below are given by a top
expert in rural water supply.
Step 1: Identified potential alternatives are solar water disinfection, coagulant/flocculants treatment
and reverse osmosis).
Step 2, 3& 4: Criteria/alternative interdependence and AHP Model are established (Fig. 1).
Step 5: Criteria pairwise comparisons performed to determine criteria priorities (Tables 1, 2).
Let’s sum up all the elements in each column to generate Column Total (Table 1). Then divide
each value by its column sum. For example, the sum of all the elements in the column of item a –Low cost is 6.25. The value of the pairwise comparison between quality and itself is 1. To
normalize this value, we divide 1 by the column total of 6.25 to result in 0.16 (Table 2). The lastcolumn of Table 3 shows the priority weight of each criterion, which is calculated by averaging all
the values of the same row. For example, the criterion of item a - low cost is 0.16. The row averagevalue is not different from the value previously normalized by column because the expert judgment
is perfectly consistent.
Besttechnology

Low
upfront
cost

Closealignment
with locality

Solar water
disinfection

Limitedskills forO&M

Low energy
and wastewater

Coaggulant/floc
culant withchlorine

Scalability

Employability

ReverseOsmosis

Fig. 1 The AHP model for technology selection
Table 1 Pairwise comparison of criteria - original matrix
a. Low costb. Alignment with localityc. Limited O&M skills
d. Low energy and waste watere. Scalability
f. Employability
COLUMN TOTALS

a1
5/4
4/4
4/4
4/4
4/4
6.25

b4/5
1
4/5
4/5
4/5
4/5
5.0

c
4/4
5/4
1
4/4
4/4
4/4
6.3

d4/4
5/4
4/4
1
4/4
4/46.3

e
4/4
5/4
4/4
4/4
1
4/4
6.3

f
4/4
5/4
4/4
4/4
4/4
1
6.3

Read: take the example of the 2nd row. The pairwise comparison between alignment with locality (item b) and low cost
(item a) is 5/4. It means that the expert judged 5 points for alignment with locality versus 4 points for low cost.

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Table 2 Pairwise comparison of criteria - adjusted matrix

a. Low costb. Alignment with localityc. Limited O&M skills
d. Low energy and wasterwater
e. Scalability
f. Employability

a0.16
0.20
0.16

b0.16
0.20
0.16

c0.16
0.20
0.16

d0.16
0.20
0.16

e0.16
0.20
0.16

f0.16
0.20
0.16

Priorities(Row average)
0.16
0.20
0.16

0.16
0.16
0.16

0.16
0.16
0.16

0.16
0.16
0.16

0.16
0.16
0.16

0.16
0.16
0.16

0.16
0.16
0.16
TOTAL

0.16
0.16
0.16
1.00

Step 6: Pairwise comparison to determine alternative priorities with respect to each criterion. After
we make comparison between criteria, we continue with pairwise alternative comparison. Table 3aand Table 3b show the results of priority weights after we have taken Step 5 above. For example,
after column value normalization and row average, the priority weight for solar water disinfection
option relative to other option is 0.396 in respect to Low cost (Table 3a).
Table 3a Supplier pairwise comparison in respect to cost, alignment to locality, O&M skills

A. Solar disinfection
B. Coagulant/flocculants
plus chlorine
C. Reverse Osmosis
WeightA
1Cost
B
5/3

3/5
1/5
0.396

1
1/3
0.453

C
1/3Alignment to locality
ABC
114

Limited O&M skills
ABC
1
5/3
5

3
10.1511
1/40.444

3/5
1/50.556

11/40.444

4
10.1111
1/30.333

310.111

Read: Take the example of the judgment value of 1/5 between C and A in the 3rd row. It means that C is 5 times lesspreferable than A in respect to Cost.

Table 3b Supplier pairwise comparison in respect to low energy/waste water, scalability andemployability
Low energy and water waste
A. Solar disinfection
B. Coagulant/flocculants
plus chlorine
C. Reverse Osmosis
WeightScalability

Employability

A
1

B
5/3

C5A
1

B
3/4

C3

A
1

B
1/2

C
2/3

3/5
1/5
0.556

1
1/3
0.333

3
1
0.111

4/3
1/3
0.375

1
1/4
0.500

4
1
0.125

2
3/2
0.222

1
3/4
0.444

4/3
1
0.333

Table 4 Computation of overall weights
OptionABC

Low cost
0.160(0.396)(0.160)(0.453)(0.160)(0.151)(0.160)

Alignment Limited O&M
with locality
skillsLow energy
and water
waste

0.200
(0.444)(0.2)(0.444)(0.2)(0.111)(0.2)

0.1600.160
0.160(0.556)(0.16) (0.375)(0.16) (0.222)(0.16)(0.333)(0.16) (0.5)(0.16) (0.444)(0.16)(0.111)(0.16) (0.125)(0.16) (0.333)(0.16)

0.160(0.556)(0.16)(0.333)(0.16)(0.111)(0.16)

Overall
Scalability Employability Weights(row total)
0.426
0.419
0.155

Step 7: Determine overall priority for each alternative.
After we have known the priority for each criteria and alternative, we generate the overall
priority weight by making a product of these two priorities and sum all the values of the same row(Table 5). For example, Option A gets an overall priority weight of 0.426.

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Table 5 Overall priority weight ranking
Alternative
A – Solar disinfection
B – Coagulant/flocculants plus chlorineC – Reverse Osmosis

Overall priority weight0.426
0.419
0.155

Step 8: Select the technology alternative with the highest priority: the final step is to sort theoverall weights by descending order and select the alternative with the highest weight (Table 5).
The above calculated result from AHP method yields the highest overall priority weight forsolar disinfection for rural water technology (overall priority weight of 0.426). This is because theexpert assessed that this alternative receives the highest values for three out of six assessment
criteria, i.e. alignment to local conditions, limited requirements for O&M skills, low energy andwaste water, with the largest importance weight loaded on the alignment to local conditions.
In the Mekong Delta Water Project (2002-2008) all piped water schemes in communes use
flocculant/coagulant technology. Several reasons can be given. Traditionally, local preliminarytechnical assessment engineers did not include emerging technologies like solar disinfection orreverse osmosis, in the feasibility study phase. It was because of limited capacity of local rural
water centers, their ignorance of other better technologies and project time constraint, to namesome. Besides, local partners are inclined to prefer a familiar technology like flocculant/coagulant
technology with chlorine rather than take time to study the feasibility of a new technology which
requires much time and expertise. As a result, beneficiary communities in the project areintroduced with familiar coagulant technology whereas our computations show solar disinfection isbetter.
CONCLUSION
The AHP method is recommended for use as a multi-criteria selection model by any community
committee composed of members of diverse expertise, background and possibly interests. For
example, an engineer may prefer operations feasibility while a community representative favours
affordability and employability. The remaining issue is how to reach this consensus among thesemembers. Future studies need to introduce a method by which committee members can come up
with a consensus. Group preference decision technique is one method of this kind. Besides, theconditions for applying this model include prior identification of suggested choices and ability ofcommittee members in determining criteria relevant to the proposed investment, which would be achallenge in rural areas. It is strongly suggested that social enterprises use this selection approachas quantitative management. In a context where stakeholders need to know justifications of any
choice made by the social enterprise in option selection, the results of this approach would show
clear and scientific evidence to convince them. The limitations of this approach include a short listof alternatives meaning that if the number of alternatives and criteria is too large, it is too complex
to calculate priority weights manually. In this case, it is suggested to use a specializing software
Expert Choice. It is possible to properly apply the AHP method in selecting water technology
because of some reasons. Firstly, the nature of a water project requires preliminary technicalinvestigation for available water sources, normally done as part of feasibility study. As a result, ashort list of technology alternatives would be proposed. It should be avoided that a project presents
too many alternatives without prior technical screening step and consequently community select anoption which subsequently turns out to be technically unfeasible. Secondly, the list of evaluation
criteria can be enriched by consulting community members. Thirdly, for community-level waterschemes, different views from engineers, community development consultants, planning experts,
etc should be considered in making decisions. The AHP is a suitable and fair process to synergize
these diverse but important points of view. Lastly, with emerging advanced technologies in water
treatment and distribution, a community should be wise to take advantage of a technology which
can help enhance farming productivity hence reduce poverty. Future studies should explore howsome technologies can create employment for local people.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Ray Miles, the former Australian Team Leader at the Mekong
Delta Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project for his expertise inputs to this paper. Withoutthem, I would have been unable to produce this study with the judgment values for the matrices.
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