A new fuzzy algorithm for ecological ranking

Ecological ranking is a prerequisite to many kinds of environmental decisions. It requires a set of “objects” (e.g., competing sites for species reintroduction, or competing alternatives of environmental management) to be evaluated on the basis of multiple weighted criteria, and then ranked from the best to the worst, or vice versa. The resulting ranking is then used to choose the course of an action (e.g., the optimal sites where a species can be reintroduced, or the optimal management scenario for a protected area). In this work, a new tool called FuzRnk is proposed as a modification of classic fuzzy algorithm. FuzRnk, which is freely available upon request from the author, allows for a fuzzy ranking of GIS objects (e.g., landscape patches or zones within protected areas). With respect to classic fuzzy algorithm, FuzRnk introduces two modifications: a) criteria can be weighted on the basis of their importance, b) not only the best performances, but also the worst ones are considered in the ranking procedure.