OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS EMPLOYING MULTIOBJECTIVE METHODS AND INDICATORS – PART 2: A METHODOLOGY FOR PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS AND ITS APPLICATION TO A CASE STUDY

Abstract

This work proposed a methodology to evaluate the performance of Sewage Treatment Plants (STP). This methodology was applied to three STP located in the Federal District, Brazil, employing a pre-selected set of the most appropriate indicators that were evaluated as the most important according to the perspectives of a set of actors. The objective of this methodology was to classify the STP into one of the following performance categories: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Poor, and Very Poor. From the proposed criteria and the generated indicator database, 22 indicators were selected for this evaluation. The ELECTRE-TRI and TOPSIS-Modified multi-objective methods were used, and the STP performances were determined. The three STP evaluated achieved an overall performance converging to category Good. The methodology developed was considered adequate, having scope and flexibility to evaluate STP with different systems, sizes and context situations.