Sustainable urban development in practice:the SAVE concept

The need for sustainable development of the urban environment presents the research community with a number of challenges and opportunities. A considerable volume of research has been undertaken into the constituent parts of this complex problem and a number of tool kits and methodologies have been developed to enable and encourage the application of specific aspects of research in practice. However, there is limited evidence of the holistic integration of the body of knowledge arising from the research within real-life decision-making practices. In this paper we present an overview of the existing body of knowledge relating to sustainable development of the urban environment and propose a generic framework for its integration within current practices. This framework recognises the need to: understand social, economic, and environmental issues; understand the decision-making processes; provide a means of measurement, assessment, or valuation of the issues; provide analytical methods for the comparative assessment of complex data to enable an evaluation of strategies and design options and to communicate effectively throughout the process with a wide range of stakeholders. The components of a novel sustainability assessment, visualisation and enhancement (SAVE) framework, developed by the authors to ‘operationalise’ the body of knowledge are presented and justified. These include: decision-mapping methods to identify points of intervention; indicator identification and measurement approaches; appropriate mathematical and analytical tools and an interactive simulation and visualisation platform which integrates and communicates complex multivariate information to diverse stakeholder groups. We report on the application of the SAVE framework to a major urban development project and reflect on its current and potential impact on the development. Conclusions are also drawn about its general applicability

Extending the combined use of scenarios and multi-criteria decision analysis for evaluating the robustness of strategic options

Deep uncertainty exists when there is disagreement on how to model inter-relationships between variables in the external/controllable and internal/controllable environment; how to specify probability distributions to represent threats; and/or how to value various consequences. The evaluation of strategic options under deep uncertainty involves structuring the decision problem, specifying options to address that problem, and assessing which options appear to consistently perform well by achieving desirable levels of performance across a range of futures. The integrated use of scenarios and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) provides a framework for managing these issues, and is an area of growing interest. This thesis aims to explore such integrated use, suggesting a new method for combining MCDA and scenario planning, and to test such proposal through a multi-method research strategy involving case study, behavioural experiment and simulation. The proposal reflects the three key areas of confluence of scenarios and MCDA in the decision making process. The first is based on systematic generation of a larger scenario set, focused on extreme outcomes, for defining the boundaries of the decision problem. The second proposal is based on providing less scenario detail than the traditional narrative, in favour of explicitly considering how uncertainties affect positive and negative outcomes on key objectives. This backward logic seeks to better address the challenge of estimating the consequences of each option and the trade-offs involved. Finally, it is proposed that option selection be based on a concern for robustness through cost-equivalent regret. The empirical findings reflect that the key benefit of integration appears to be a mechanism to improve the efficiency of elicitation and the robustness of options. However, effective application of scenarios and MCDA requires awareness of the desired degree of accuracy required and risk attitude of decision makers

Farming for ecosystem services: A case study of multifunctional agriculture in Iowa, U.S.A

Agriculture in the United States faces major challenges for the 21st Century; it is at a pivotal stage in terms of integrating societal demands for sustainability and enhanced quality of life from agricultural lands. A growing understanding that farms play key roles in provisioning a wide range of ecosystem services is converging with a surge in public interest in the sustainability of farming and food systems. Farmers in the US Corn Belt are being solicited to manage for an increasingly complex and expanding suite of production and environmental benefits. However, managing landscapes for multiple objectives presents a major challenge and inherently increases management complexity. A critical challenge lies in defining an appropriate set of agriculture and environmental objectives for management across spatial scales. The goal of this research was to analyze the degree to which there is a capacity to manage agricultural landscapes for multiple ecosystem services with existing and emerging agricultural management practices. I addressed this goal by conducting a case study with stakeholders representing agricultural and environmental interests in Iowa, U.S.A., through a mixed methods approach utilizing the Delphi survey technique and in-person interviews with photo elicitation. This thesis presents the case study results regarding the relationship between ecosystem services and agricultural land management; identifies farm scale management practices that are most promising for achieving ecosystem service objectives across scales; and, additionally, presents a portfolio of landscape visualizations depicting scenarios of land management alternatives

Creative Thinking and Modelling for the Decision Support in Water Management

This paper reviews the state of art in knowledge and preferences elicitation techniques. The purpose of the study was to evaluate various cognitive mapping techniques in order to conclude with the identification of the optimal technique for the NetSyMod methodology. Network Analysis – Creative System Modelling (NetSyMod) methodology has been designed for the improvement of decision support systems (DSS) with respect to the environmental problems. In the paper the difference is made between experts and stakeholders knowledge and preference elicitation methods. The suggested technique is very similar to the Nominal Group Techniques (NGT) with the external representation of the analysed problem by means of the Hodgson Hexagons. The evolving methodology is undergoing tests within several EU-funded projects such as: ITAES, IISIM, NostrumDSS.Creative modelling, Cognitive mapping, Preference elicitation techniques, Decision support

Aligning Public Participation to Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy—A Case Study on Sustainable Urban Development in Phoenix, Arizona

abstract: n public planning processes for sustainable urban development, planners and experts often face the challenge of engaging a public that is not familiar with sustainability principles or does not subscribe to sustainability values. Although there are calls to build the public’s sustainability literacy through social learning, such efforts require sufficient time and other resources that are not always available. Alternatively, public participation processes may be realigned with the sustainability literacy the participants possess, and their capacity can modestly be built during the engagement. Asking what tools might successfully align public participation with participants’ sustainability literacy, this article describes and evaluates a public participation process in Phoenix, Arizona, in which researchers, in collaboration with city planners, facilitated sustainability conversations as part of an urban development process. The tool employed for Visually Enhanced Sustainability Conversation (VESC) was specifically designed to better align public participation with stakeholders’ sustainability literacy. We tested and evaluated VESC through interviews with participants, city planners, and members of the research team, as well as an analysis of project reports. We found that the use of VESC successfully facilitated discussions on pertinent sustainability issues and embedded sustainability objectives into the project reports. We close with recommendations for strengthening tools like VESC for future public engagements

Aligning Public Participation to Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy—A Case Study on Sustainable Urban Development in Phoenix, Arizona

In public planning processes for sustainable urban development, planners and experts often face the challenge of engaging a public that is not familiar with sustainability principles or does not subscribe to sustainability values. Although there are calls to build the public’s sustainability literacy through social learning, such efforts require sufficient time and other resources that are not always available. Alternatively, public participation processes may be realigned with the sustainability literacy the participants possess, and their capacity can modestly be built during the engagement. Asking what tools might successfully align public participation with participants’ sustainability literacy, this article describes and evaluates a public participation process in Phoenix, Arizona, in which researchers, in collaboration with city planners, facilitated sustainability conversations as part of an urban development process. The tool employed for Visually Enhanced Sustainability Conversation (VESC) was specifically designed to better align public participation with stakeholders’ sustainability literacy. We tested and evaluated VESC through interviews with participants, city planners, and members of the research team, as well as an analysis of project reports. We found that the use of VESC successfully facilitated discussions on pertinent sustainability issues and embedded sustainability objectives into the project reports. We close with recommendations for strengthening tools like VESC for future public engagements

Incorporating stakeholders' values into environmental decision support : A Bayesian Belief Network approach

Participatory modelling increases the transparency of environmental planning and management processes and enhances the mutual understanding among different parties. We present a sequential probabilistic approach to involve stakeholders' views in the formal decision support process. A continuous Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) model is used to estimate population parameters for stakeholder groups, based on samples of individual value judgements. The approach allows quantification and visualization of the variability in views among and within stakeholder groups. Discrete BBN is populated with these parameters, to summarize and visualize the information and to link it to a larger decision analytic influence diagram (ID). As part of ID, the resulting discrete BBN element serves as a distribution-form decision criteria in probabilistic evaluation of alternative management strategies, to help find a solution that represents the optimal compromise in the presence of potentially conflicting objectives. We demonstrate our idea using example data from the field of marine spatial planning. However, this approach is applicable to many types of management cases. We suggest that by advancing the mutual understanding and concrete participation this approach can further facilitate the stakeholder involvement also during the various stages of the environmental management process. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Making better decisions for the conservation of threatened species: science, values, and New Zealand's rarest bird

Decision making for threatened species recovery can be complex: there is often a diverse range of stakeholders holding values that may be conflicting, data are typically deficient and imperfect, and there is uncertainty about the outcomes of proposed actions. Yet in this pressured and challenging context, decisions must still be made. Conservationists therefore need the right tools to address these complexities, and structured decision making (SDM) is effective in this space. Here, I demonstrate the utility of SDM and its component tools to assist recovery planning for Aotearoa-New Zealand’s rarest indigenous breeding bird, tara iti (New Zealand fairy tern, Sternula nereis davisae). My PhD aims to advance (i) the way we approach decisions via inclusivity and expression of values, (ii) the way we make decisions by recognising objectives, creating alternatives and making explicit trade-offs, and (iii) the way we use data to support these decisions by analysing and interpreting biased or imperfect datasets. Values drive decisions, and I first demonstrate how SDM, a values-focused approach, can be used to meaningfully integrate stakeholder values such as mātauranga Māori (Māori [indigenous New Zealander] knowledge/perspective) into conservation decisions and provide a basis for co-management between different peoples. Second, I analyse a seabird translocation trial, showing how creative thinking about alternatives can help better achieve conservation objectives. Third, I show how the application of SDM resulted in a new management recommendation that balanced across multiple objectives and was evidence-based. This was the first action after a decade of inaction and communication breakdown between stakeholders. Finally, I use a decision tree and counterfactuals to analyse the efficacy of tara iti egg management, showing how these tools can help navigate complex and biased monitoring data sets to improve future decisions. This thesis provides a detailed real-world example of how SDM can be applied effectively to a complex conservation problem, and highlights the importance of clear, values-focused thinking and inclusive approaches in species recovery

Enhancing Stakeholder Participation in Urban Mobility Planning: the NISTO Evaluation Framework

Public participation and stakeholder involvement have become core prerequisites of a comprehensive and fair transport planning process. In this paper, we show how the multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA) methodology can enhance urban and regional mobility planning and decision-making by considering conflicting stakeholder objectives and helping to identify synergies and disagreement between different stakeholder groups. We suggest the application of MAMCA as part of the NISTO evaluation framework that offers tools to appraise small-scale mobility projects through a toolkit of multi-criteria analysis, MAMCA and target monitoring. MAMCA provides a tool to appraise the preferences of the stakeholders involved or affected by a project. It is based on assessing the evaluation criteria of the different stakeholder groups rather than appraising the project based on a set of common criteria agreed on with all stakeholders at the beginning of the process. Therefore the evaluation shows which implementation alternatives or scenarios each group would prefer and allows for a straightforward comparison of preferences across all stakeholder groups. The application of the MAMCA is demonstrated through the initial results of the evaluation of five demonstration projects in North-West Europe. We show that MAMCA is suitable for a range of mobility projects since it can handle the diversity of stakeholder groups and their objectives. In addition it offers the practitioner a well-structured way of carrying out the whole evaluation process. The application of MAMCA also has the added value of broadening the evaluation process to a wide range of stakeholders instead of limiting it to experts. As opposed to previous approaches, the MAMCA methodology aims to provide a balanced evaluation process where the stakeholders have equal weight, i.e. no priority is given to decision makers, users groups or experts. Our analysis of the process of the identification of stakeholders and their objectives also suggests that there is no generic recipe for the range of stakeholders to be involved in different projects, their objectives and the data that needs to be collected for the evaluation. The MAMCA methodology will be offered to practitioners as a simple-to-use web-based software tool that can collect stakeholder objectives and weights, as well as the input of experts and monitoring data for the evaluation of the alternatives and display the outcome on graphs. Therefore we hope that the tool will improve participation in urban decision-making and evaluation thorough the better integration of diverse stakeholder preferences