Environmental Effectiveness of Swine Sewage Management: A Multicriteria AHP-Based Model for a Reliable Quick Assessment Marco Vizzari • Giuseppe Modica Received: 12 February 2013 / Accepted: 8 August 2013 / Published online: 24 August 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Environmental issues related to swine produc- tion are still a major concern for the general public and represent a key challenge for the swine industry. The environmental impact of higher livestock concentration is particularly significant where it coincides with weaker policy standards and poor manure management. Effective tools for environmental monitoring of the swine sewage management process become essential for verifying the environmental compatibility of farming facilities and for defining suitable policies aimed at increasing swine pro- duction sustainability. This research aims at the develop- ment and application of a model for a quick assessment of the environmental effectiveness of the pig farming sewage management process. In order to define the model, multi- criteria techniques, and in particular, Saaty’s analytic hierarchy process, were used to develop an iterative pro- cess in which the various key factors influencing the pro- cess under investigation were analyzed. The model, named EASE (Environmental Assessment of Sewages manage- ment Effectiveness), was optimized and applied to the Lake Trasimeno basin (Umbria, Italy), an area of high natural, environmental and aesthetic value. In this context, inadequate disposal of pig sewage represents a potential source of very considerable pollution. The results have demonstrated how the multicriteria model can represent a very effective and adaptable tool also in those decision- making processes aimed at the sustainable management of livestock production. Keywords Livestock sewage management  Environmental assessment and modelling  Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA)  Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)  Decision support systems (DSS) Introduction Agricultural intensification in the most suitable agricultural areas is one of the features associated with the more recent and significant landscape transformations that have occur- red in Europe (Modica and others 2012). The environ- mental impact of high livestock concentration appears particularly significant where it coincides with weaker policy standards and poor manure management strategies (EEA 2007). Livestock sludge, in accordance with the best agricultural practices, can be used successfully as a resource and an organic fertilizer for crops, ensuring optimal disposal of such substances (Martinez and others 2009). In many cases, however, agronomic and environ- mental damages can result from the improper use of sludge, such as damage to the soil, degradation of the soil structure etc., because of the levels of certain cations (K ? , Na ? ), salinization, alterations in soil pH, alteration of the soil microbial population, and accumulation of heavy metals. These processes have a tendency to lead to deg- radation of the agronomic potential of agricultural lands, and to the pollution of ground and surface water (CRPA 1993; Steinfeld and others 2010). The element causing the greatest number of manage- ment problems with regard to impact on near-surface and M. Vizzari (&) Dipartimento Uomo e Territorio, Universita ` degli Studi di Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy e-mail: marco.vizzari@unipg.it G. Modica Dipartimento di Agraria, Universita ` degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Loc. Feo di Vito, 89122 Reggio Calabria, Italy 123 Environmental Management (2013) 52:1023–1039 DOI 10.1007/s00267-013-0149-y