Sediment management strategy prioritization in hydropower reservoirs under data scarcity

Introduction Sedimentation in hydropower reservoirs is a major challenge for sustainable energy production. It reduces storage capacity, increases turbine abrasion, and raises operational costs, while also causing environmental impacts and operational management difficulties. Therefore, the identification of appropriate sediment management strategies is essential for maintaining reservoir sustainability and operational performance. However, many reservoirs have limited hydrological and sediment monitoring data, which restricts the application of conventional process-based methods. Methods This study proposes a multi-criteria decision-making framework that integrates the Best-Worst Method (BWM) and the Combined Compromise for Ideal Solution (CoCoFISo) method to prioritize sediment management strategies under data-scarce conditions. Ten management strategies were evaluated using four dimensions: economic, environmental, technical, and social. Criterion weights were determined using BWM, an optimization-based method for deriving weights from expert judgments. The CoCoFISo method was used to rank the strategies by combining additive and multiplicative aggregation mechanisms to handle complex decision problems. Results The results show that the technical dimension received the highest weight (0.365), while the social dimension received the lowest weight (0.089). At the criterion level, sediment control effectiveness (C7), impact on hydropower generation (C6), and sediment connectivity (C3) received the highest global weights of 0.212, 0.151, and 0.147, respectively. Reforestation (S1) achieved the highest score and ranked first, followed by vegetative filter strips (S2) and check dams (S4). Several middle-ranked strategies had closely spaced final scores, resulting in small differences in their relative positions. Sensitivity and comparative analyses were conducted to assess the stability of the resulting rankings. Discussion The proposed BWM-CoCoFISo framework provides a structured decision-support approach for prioritizing sediment management strategies when monitoring data are limited.