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.
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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. |
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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. |
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