The intuitionistic fuzzy linguistic assessment of forest soil quality with multi-granularity qualitative information

The soil quality of forest land is directly related to the growth of forest trees and the local ecological environment. This paper proposes an intuitionistic fuzzy linguistic aggregation method for heterogeneous linguistic assessment information, to solve the multi-index assessment problem containing heterogeneous linguistic information. Based on this method, the soil quality of forest land can be evaluated reasonably. Firstly, the multi-granularity heterogeneous linguistic terms are effectively transformed by the defined linguistic scaling function. Secondly, the formula of the deviation coefficient between linguistic terms is given. By fully considering evaluators' risk preferences, the intuitionistic fuzzy linguistic numbers are determined using this formula. Simultaneously, the assessment index's objective weight is obtained based on the distance calculation formula of intuitionistic fuzzy linguistics. Finally, the intuitionistic fuzzy linguistic multi-attribute assessment (IFLMA) method with heterogeneous linguistic assessment information is proposed. The numerical example is developed to illustrate the validity of the proposed method in assessing the soil quality of forest land. Comparative and sensitivity analyses prove that this method has unique advantages in processing heterogeneous linguistic assessment information.