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Popular Analysis Method Reviewed in Environmental Decision-Making

1 April 2005

Seemingly impossible tradeoffs must be made among economic, ecological, environmental and sociopolitical factors to facilitate decision-making in environmental projects. A new study in the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management reviews a method with the potential to resolve these competing interests and overcome the limitations of unstructured individual or group decision-making: multicriteria decision analysis, known as MCDA.

MCDA is used systematically to determine favorable solutions to complex problems, in which analysis often requires technical input from modeling and monitoring studies, risk assessment, cost or cost-benefit analysis and stakeholder preferences.

"The methods of MCDA evolved as a response to the observed inability of people to effectively analyze multiple streams of dissimilar information," the researchers said.

In looking at the use of MCDA at contaminated sites, the authors reviewed different methods used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and the European Union. Three components were deemed necessary for the successful application of MCDA: people, process and tools.

"Integrating this heterogeneous information with respect to human aspirations and technical applications," the researchers said, "demands a systematic and understandable framework to organize the people, processes and tools for making a structured and defensible decision."

Using MCDA in environmental decision-making, specifically for contaminated sites, has a firm basis but is relatively rare in comparison with its use in related areas such as climate change; life-cycle assessment; and medical, military, energy and public policy. MCDA has received considerable attention in the United States and in the European Union during the past five years. The subject has been the topic of several conferences, including a NATO meeting that will be held in Greece this April.

To read the entire study, click here: http://www.allenpress.com/pdf/ieam-01-02_95_108.pdf.

Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management is a quarterly journal of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). For more information about the Society, visit www.setac.org. For more information about Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, visit http://setac.allenpress.com/entconline/?request=index-html.

[Application of Multicriteria Decision Analysis in Environmental Decision-Making, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management] 2005, Vol 1(2);95-108

Contact:
April M. Phillips
T 850 469 1500 x 28
aprilp@setac.org