TOPSIS optimization for the choice of soil remediation contractor in Serbia

Abstract

Environmental projects are being intensively invested in recent decades due to the ecological context of sustainability. Besides, construction practice has been actively focused on solving the issue of abandoned industrial, military and others complexes marked as brownfield areas, and creating opportunities for their reuse. Brownfields often represent landfills and former industrial plants so during the renewal process it is necessary to carry out soil remediation and remove pollution that poses a threat to the environment and people. Various economic, social and political transitional changes, as well as citizens' negligence, have led to the formation of a large number of brownfields in Serbia. Due to insufficient social awareness about the importance and need for brownfields reconstruction, their regeneration process is usually limited to the decontamination of highly polluted soil using appropriate remediation methods. Modern science offers a wide range of remediation technologies, but the question of choosing the soil remediation contractor is crucial, as it affects the overall amount of investment costs and the rehabilitation success. The paper aims to enable decision-makers to determine, based on established criteria, the optimal alternative in terms of choosing the contractor for brownfield soil remediation by TOPSIS mathematical method, using the Mathematica software package.

Keywords

• brownfield
• soil remediation
• contractor of remediation
• Serbia
• multi-criteria analysis
• TOPSIS