Skip common site navigation and headers
EPA ReVA logo as header
Begin Hierarchical Links Guided Tour > Decision-making End Hierarchical Links

 

Multiple Criteria Decision-making

Responsible decision-making requires balancing among different criteria; different stakeholders value criteria differently. For example, decisions about land use change or development may involve aspects of changes in air quality, water quality, economic conditions (e.g. amount of unemployment), and concerns about native biodiversity - all decision criteria. Stakeholders concerned about environmental conservation will likely prioritize criteria differently from those concerned about increasing economic development. The EDT allows you to view how different stakeholders' preferences (values) would affect decision priorities. Stakeholder values can be viewed using only variables important to the individual or group (e.g. selecting variables relevant to conserving native aquatic species or for evaluating human health risks) or in different weighting combinations to illustrate trade-offs.

Below are two examples of vulnerability maps that highlight different criteria. In one case aquatic species are highlighted. The other case highlights human health stressors. Decisions about resource allocations will depend on how these different perspectives are reconciled.

Aquatic Stressors

A decision criterion of aquatic stress is made up of a combination of individual variables. These variables can be weighted differentially to reflect knowledge about the relative importance of individual stressors (e.g. nitrogen in surface water may be more important than risk of forest mortality in defoliated areas), or by feasibility of reducing the stress (e.g. it may be easier to reduce nonpoint runoff of nutrients than to reduce regional air pollution). The EDT allows weights to be interactively set between 0 and 10. The map above was created by setting these weights as shown below.

Screen shot of weighting individual indicators

Another potential decision criterion is human health stressors. Again, this decision criterion is made up of a combination of variables, with weights selected for the individual variables.

Human Health Stressors - Total Nitrogen and Ozone 8hr
 
Begin Site Footer Stats/Graphs Powered by Insightful