Analysis of the potentials of multi criteria decision analysis methods to conduct sustainability assessment

Sustainability assessments require the management of a wide variety of information types, parameters and uncertainties. Multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been regarded as a suitable set of methods to perform sustainability evaluations as a result of its flexibility and the possibility of facilitating the dialogue between stakeholders, analysts and scientists. However, it has been reported that researchers do not usually properly define the reasons for choosing a certain MCDA method instead of another. Familiarity and affinity with a certain approach seem to be the drivers for the choice of a certain procedure. This review paper presents the performance of five MCDA methods (i.e. MAUT, AHP, PROMETHEE, ELECTRE and DRSA) in respect to ten crucial criteria that sustainability assessments tools should satisfy, among which are a life cycle perspective, thresholds and uncertainty management, software support and ease of use. The review shows that MAUT and AHP are fairly simple to understand and have good software support, but they are cognitively demanding for the decision makers, and can only embrace a weak sustainability perspective as trade-offs are the norm. Mixed information and uncertainty can be managed by all the methods, while robust results can only be obtained with MAUT. ELECTRE, PROMETHEE and DRSA are non-compensatory approaches which consent to use a strong sustainability concept, accept a variety of thresholds, but suffer from rank reversal. DRSA is less demanding in terms of preference elicitation, is very easy to understand and provides a straightforward set of decision rules expressed in the form of elementary “if … then …” conditions. Dedicated software is available for all the approaches with a medium to wide range of results capability representation. DRSA emerges as the easiest method, followed by AHP, PROMETHEE and MAUT, while ELECTRE is regarded as fairly difficult. Overall, the analysis has shown that most of the requirements are satisfied by the MCDA methods (although to different extents) with the exclusion of management of mixed data types and adoption of life cycle perspective which are covered by all the considered approaches

MCDA for sustainability assessment – insights to Helmholtz Association activities

The "MCDA for sustainability assessment – insights to Helmholtz Association activities" Working Paper aims to compile and reflect previous and on-going work within the Helmholtz Association related to MCDA, in particular, to present use cases and key methodological aspects. It has a focus on but is not limited to energy technologies and systems and is mainly based on the presentations held at the online workshop “Multi criteria decision analysis for sustainability assessment of energy technologies and systems”. The workshop was organized within the activities of the Helmholtz program ESD Topic 1 "Energy System Transformation" and took place on November 22nd, 2021

Group aggregation of pairwise comparisons using multi-objective optimization

AbstractIn group decision making, multiple decision makers (DMs) aim to reach a consensus ranking of alternatives in a decision problem. The differing expertise, experience and, potentially conflicting, interests of the DMs will result in the need for some form of conciliation to achieve consensus. Pairwise comparisons are commonly used to elicit values of preference of a DM. The aggregation of the preferences of multiple DMs must additionally consider potential conflict between DMs and how these conflicts may result in a need for compromise to reach group consensus.We present an approach to aggregating the preferences of multiple DMs, utilizing multi-objective optimization, to derive and highlight underlying conflict between the DMs when seeking to achieve consensus. Extracting knowledge of conflict facilitates both traceability and transparency of the trade-offs involved when reaching a group consensus.Further, the approach incorporates inconsistency reduction during the aggregation process to seek to diminish adverse effects upon decision outcomes. The approach can determine a single final solution based on either global compromise information or through utilizing weights of importance of the DMs.Within multi-criteria decision making, we present a case study within the Analytical Hierarchy Process from which we derive a richer final ranking of the decision alternatives

A Transdisciplinary Approach to Decision Support for Dams in the Northeastern U.S. with Hydropower Potential

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the regulatory body that oversees non-federally owned dam operations in the United States. With more than 300 hydropower dams across the U.S. seeking FERC relicense between 2020 and 2029, and 135 of those dams within the Northeast region alone, it is prudent to anticipate and plan for such decision-making processes. Anyone may be involved in FERC relicensing; in fact, FERC solicits public comment and requires the licensee to hold a public hearing during the process. Parties may also elect to apply for legal intervenor status, allowing them a more formal entry into the relicensing process. However, there are two key barriers that may keep the public from participating in a dam decision-making process in an impactful way. The first of these barriers is access to information. Having access to the types of information that matters to FERC is important, because it allows the participant to communicate their support or concerns about the relicensing using the language of the process. In particular, participants other than the licensee may not have access to project economic information, so this is a focus in my research. The second barrier is capacity to participate in a way that impacts the process (i.e., institutional knowledge about what kinds of decision criteria (factors) and decision alternatives (project options), as well as relevant data, that FERC typically weighs in their decision making or has considered in the past). Actors not privy to license information (perhaps encountering difficulty in navigating the FERC eLibrary), lacking knowledge of FERC process conventions, or otherwise unfamiliar with hydropower dam schemes or operations have substantial hurdles preventing their effective participation. My research, situated in the sustainability science arena, addresses hydropower project cost and performance assessment and multi-criteria considerations for dam decision support. I lead the development and assessment of an online Dam Decision Support Tool aimed at addressing barriers to the hydropower dam decision-making process. My work demonstrates possibilities for tailoring decision tools to incorporate stakeholder perspectives into decision making about hydropower dams

Dominance-based rough set approach and analytic network process for assessing urban transformation scenarios

For half a century, the significant development of intensive farming has led to a massive use of products such as pesticides. The excessive use of these substances has contaminated surface water and groundwater. Drinking water extraction points have also had to be abandoned. Some thirty years ago, in the southwest of France, a group of farmers decided to improve their farming methods, as well as developing new Best Environmental Practices, such as grass strips along streams and riparian forests. By combining the use of ELECTRE TRI-C multi-criteria model with a GIS, we were able to characterise the contribution of each farming area to the risk of surface water contamination with pesticides. We also assessed the effectiveness of different environmental practices. We found that the use of Best Environmental Practices led to a reduction in the risk of pesticides transfer. This methodology re-enforces decision support tools for water resource managers and agricultural and environmental stakeholders