Prioritizing the Best Potential Regions for Brine Concentration Systems in the USA using GIS and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

We propose a methodology for identifying and prioritizing the best potential locations for brine concentration facilities in the contiguous United States. The methodology uses a Geographic Information System and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (GIS-MCDA) to prioritize the potential locations for brine concentration facilities based on thermodynamic, economic, environmental, and social criterion. By integrating geospatial data with a computational simulation of a real brine concentration system, an objective weighting method identifies the weights for thirteen sub-criteria associated with the main criterion. When considering multiple dimensions for decision-making, brine concentration facilities centered in Florida were consistently selected as the best location, due to the high second-law efficiency, low transportation cost, and high capacity for supplying municipal water needs to nearby populations. For inland locations, Southeast Texas outperforms all other locations for thermodynamic, economic and environmental priority cases. A sensitivity analysis evaluates the consistency of the results as the priority of a main criterion varies relative to other decision-making criteria. Focusing on a single sub-criterion misleads decision-making when identifying the best location for brine concentration systems, identifying the importance of the multi-criteria methodology.