Abstract
In order to assess the sustainability for groundwater resources, this study applies Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach to establish an environmental sustainability assessment (ESA) framework. The study modifies the standard AHP to make it simple in the way of weighting the component contribution properly and applies for Hanoi as the first tropical monsoonal case study. Groundwater abstraction, pollution and environment situations are selected as the three main aspects. The ten core indicators are adopted from the groundwater sustainability indicators, suggested by the UNESCO/IAEA/IAH Working Group, to indicate that the bigger values of the indicators provide the better contribution into sustainability from environmental point of view. As the result, the composite sustainability index, S, is assessed at a good level, resulting from the contributions of the acceptable abstraction, good pollution and excellent environment situations. The sustainability indices are evaluated at the moderately high values, improbably reflecting the current problems. The study explores reasons for this gap and finds out suitable solutions to enhance ESA's performance. In order to improve the sensitivity of ESA, it is necessary to not only improve the indicator definition, validate the data used, but also carry out in smaller scales, to have a better view of resources.
