A multi-criteria approach to air pollution assessment based on the ELECTRE score method

Air pollution is currently one of the most pressing environmental issues due to its negative impacts on human health and ecosystems. One of the main challenges in assessing air quality lies in the need to determine the concentration of pollutants across the territory; moreover, it also provides an understanding of the overall pollution level in an integrated way in order to identify the most critical areas and implement appropriate mitigation policies. The aim is to combine geostatistical techniques and multi-criteria decision-making methods, specifically using the ELECTRE Score method, for air quality evaluation. The analysis focuses on five key atmospheric pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, NO2, NO, and NOx) whose concentrations were interpolated over a regular grid, allowing for a continuous and detailed spatial representation of pollution levels across Germany. Unlike traditional ELECTRE methods, ELECTRE Score provides an aggregate score for each alternative (in this case, each grid cell), simplifying the classification and interpretation process. The final scores enable an intuitive ranking of areas based on pollution severity, supporting strategic decision-making in identifying priority zones for environmental intervention.