Decision-Making Framework for Sustainable Management of the Aral Sea Dried-Bottom under Uncertainty

The Aral Sea region has been facing severe ecological, social, and economic challenges due to large-scale water mismanagement and climate change impacts. Effective environmental decision-making in this area requires the integration of multiple uncertain and conflicting factors. Traditional decision-making approaches often fail to adequately handle the complexity and vagueness of such problems. This paper proposes a novel decision-making framework based on the theory of Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets to address uncertainty in the management and ecological rehabilitation of the Aral Sea. The developed approach enables decision-makers to model hesitation and incomplete knowledge more effectively compared to classical fuzzy methods. A case study focused on sustainable water resource allocation and ecological restoration strategies in the Aral Sea basin demonstrates the applicability of the proposed model. The results show that the intuitionistic fuzzy approach provides greater flexibility and reliability in evaluating alternatives, thereby supporting more robust and sustainable environmental management decisions under uncertainty.