Use of multicriteria analysis (MCA) for sustainable hydropower planning and management

Multicriteria analysis (MCA) is a decision-making tool applied to a wide range of environmental man-agement problems, including renewable energy planning and management. An interestingfield ofapplication of MCA is the evaluation and analysis of the conflicting aspects of hydropower (HP)exploitation, affecting the three pillars of sustainability and involving several different stakeholders. Thepresent study was aimed at reviewing the state of the art of MCA applications to sustainable hydropowerproduction and related decision-making problems, based on a detailed analysis of the scientific paperspublished over the last 15 years on this topic. The papers were analysed and compared, focusing on thespecific features of the MCA methods applied in the described case studies, highlighting the generalaspects of the MCA application (purpose, spatial scale, software used, stakeholders, etc.) and the specificoperational/technical features of the selected MCA technique (methodology, criteria, evaluation,approach, sensitivity, etc.). Some specific limitations of the analysed case studies were identified and aset of“quality indexes”of an exhaustive MCA application were suggested as potential improvements formore effectively support decision-making processes in sustainable HP planning and management problems.