The Impact of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Parameters on an Urban Deprivation Index

Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a family of decision support methods that allow analysts to structure a decision problem through the selection and evaluation of multiple and often conflicting criteria, using established techniques to standardize, weight, and combine these criteria. Through a case study of an area-based deprivation index for the city of Toronto’s 140 neighbourhoods, we examine the variability of MCDA results under different decision models. We use interactive cartographic visualization to explore the impact of criterion weighting and three decision rules: weighted linear combination, locally weighted linear combination, and ordered weighted averaging. The modelling of socioeconomic deprivation using these different decision rules and their parameters yielded different spatial patterns of deprivation for the same set of variables and weights. The results highlight the importance of examining multiple decision models before making policy recommendations.

Keywords:  analytic hierarchy process, area-based composite index, locally weighted linear combination, multi-criteria decision analysis, ordered weighted averaging, socio-economic deprivation