Sustainability assessment of underwater wireless communication networks using fuzzy-TOPSIS for marine environmental...

The sustainability of Underwater Wireless Communication Networks (UWCNs) is evaluated to support environmentally responsible marine monitoring systems. A Fuzzy-TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making approach is applied to assess five UWCN configurations across environmental, technical, and operational dimensions under uncertainty. Expert-derived weights indicate that communication reliability (0.152) and marine ecosystem protection efficiency (0.147) are the most influential criteria. The results show that the hybrid acoustic-optical configuration achieves the highest sustainability performance, with a closeness coefficient of 0.731. The energy-harvesting network ranks second (0.693), followed by the optical-only system (0.624). Acoustic-only and RF-assisted configurations demonstrate lower performance due to higher energy demand and limited communication effectiveness. Sensitivity analysis confirms the stability of the ranking under ±20% variation in indicator weights. The findings indicate that hybrid and energy-autonomous UWCN architectures provide balanced solutions for reliable communication and reduced environmental impact. The proposed framework provides a structured, robust decision-support tool for designing sustainable UWCNs aligned with marine environmental protection objectives.