The sustainable management of land and fisheries resources using multicriteria techniques: A meta-analysis

In recent years modern societies have attached a multifunctional requirement to the use of renewable resources, making their optimal sustainable management more complex. In the last decades, in many cases, this complexity is addressed by formulating management models with the help of the concepts and methods belonging to the well-known multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) paradigm. The purpose of this paper was to undertake a hermeneutic meta-analysis of the literature provided in primary journals on issues related to the management of these resources with the help of the MCDM paradigm. In this way, the paper aimed to obtain new, basic insights with considerations that might improve the efficiency of future research in the field studied. The meta-analysis was implemented by formulating and testing a battery of hypotheses of how the MCDM methods have been used in the past for the formulation of management models for the type of resource analyzed.The work of Carlos Romero, Carlos Iglesias-Merchan, and Luis Diaz-Balteiro was funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain under project AGL2015-68657-R. Additionally, this research was partially financed by the European Union’s H2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, grant agreement No. 691149–SuFoRun

Application of Compromise Programming to a semi-detached housing development in order to balance economic and environmental criteria

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of the Operational Research Society. The definitive publisher-authenticated version: Ruá Aguilar, MJ.; Guadalajara Olmeda, MN. (2012). Application of Compromise Programming to a semi-detached housing development in order to balance economic and environmental criteria. Journal of the Operational Research Society. 64(3):459-468, is available online at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v64/n3/full/jors201276a.html.European Energy Performance of Buildings Directives DE promote energy efficiency in buildings. Under these Directives, the European Union States must apply minimum requirements regarding the energy performance of buildings and ensure the certification of their energy performance. The Directives set only the basic principles and requirements, leaving a significant amount of room for the Member States to establish their specific mechanisms, numeric requirements and ways to implement them, taking into account local conditions. With respect to the Spanish case, the search for buildings that are more energy efficient results in a conflict between users¿ economic objectives and society's environmental objectives. In this paper, Compromise Programming is applied to help in the decision-making process. An appropriate distribution of types of dwellings, according to their energy performance and to the climatic zone considered in Spain, will be suggested. Results provide a compromise solution between both objectives.Ruá Aguilar, MJ.; Guadalajara Olmeda, MN. (2012). Application of Compromise Programming to a semi-detached housing development in order to balance economic and environmental criteria. Journal of the Operational Research Society. 64(3):459-468. doi:10.1057/jors.2012.76S459468643Andaloro, A. P. F., Salomone, R., Ioppolo, G., & Andaloro, L. (2010). Energy certification of buildings: A comparative analysis of progress towards implementation in European countries. Energy Policy, 38(10), 5840-5866. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2010.05.039André, F. J., Cardenete, M. A., & Romero, C. (2008). Using compromise programming for macroeconomic policy making in a general equilibrium framework: theory and application to the Spanish economy. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 59(7), 875-883. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602415Baja, S., Chapman, D. M., & Dragovich, D. (2006). Spatial based compromise programming for multiple criteria decision making in land use planning. Environmental Modeling & Assessment, 12(3), 171-184. doi:10.1007/s10666-006-9059-1Ballestero, E., & Romero, C. (1991). A theorem connecting utility function optimization and compromise programming. Operations Research Letters, 10(7), 421-427. doi:10.1016/0167-6377(91)90045-qBallestero, E., & Romero, C. (1993). Weighting in compromise programming: A theorem on shadow prices. Operations Research Letters, 13(5), 325-329. doi:10.1016/0167-6377(93)90055-lDavies, H., & Wyatt, D. (2004). Appropriate use of the ISO 15686-1 factor method for durability and service life prediction. Building Research & Information, 32(6), 552-553. doi:10.1080/0961321042000291938Diakaki, C., Grigoroudis, E., Kabelis, N., Kolokotsa, D., Kalaitzakis, K., & Stavrakakis, G. (2010). A multi-objective decision model for the improvement of energy efficiency in buildings. Energy, 35(12), 5483-5496. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2010.05.012Dı́az-Balteiro, L., & Romero, C. (2003). Forest management optimisation models when carbon captured is considered: a goal programming approach. Forest Ecology and Management, 174(1-3), 447-457. doi:10.1016/s0378-1127(02)00075-0Diaz-Balteiro, L., & Rodriguez, L. C. E. (2006). Optimal rotations on Eucalyptus plantations including carbon sequestration—A comparison of results in Brazil and Spain. Forest Ecology and Management, 229(1-3), 247-258. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2006.04.005Fattahi, P., & Fayyaz, S. (2009). A Compromise Programming Model to Integrated Urban Water Management. Water Resources Management, 24(6), 1211-1227. doi:10.1007/s11269-009-9492-4Hamdy, M., Hasan, A., & Siren, K. (2011). Applying a multi-objective optimization approach for Design of low-emission cost-effective dwellings. Building and Environment, 46(1), 109-123. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2010.07.006Johnstone, I. M. (2001). Energy and mass flows of housing: a model and example. Building and Environment, 36(1), 27-41. doi:10.1016/s0360-1323(99)00065-7Johnstone, I. M. (2001). Energy and mass flows of housing: estimating mortality. Building and Environment, 36(1), 43-51. doi:10.1016/s0360-1323(99)00066-9Linares, P., & Romero, C. (2000). A multiple criteria decision making approach for electricity planning in Spain: economic versus environmental objectives. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 51(6), 736-743. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jors.2600944Rey, F. J., Velasco, E., & Varela, F. (2007). Building Energy Analysis (BEA): A methodology to assess building energy labelling. Energy and Buildings, 39(6), 709-716. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2006.07.009Rudbeck, C. (2002). Service life of building envelope components: making it operational in economical assessment. Construction and Building Materials, 16(2), 83-89. doi:10.1016/s0950-0618(02)00003-xSan-José, J. T., Losada, R., Cuadrado, J., & Garrucho, I. (2007). Approach to the quantification of the sustainable value in industrial buildings. Building and Environment, 42(11), 3916-3923. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2006.11.013Yu, P. L. (1973). A Class of Solutions for Group Decision Problems. Management Science, 19(8), 936-946. doi:10.1287/mnsc.19.8.936Zelany, M. (1974). A concept of compromise solutions and the method of the displaced ideal. Computers & Operations Research, 1(3-4), 479-496. doi:10.1016/0305-0548(74)90064-

Prediction of the yield of grains through artificial intelligence

Grass turns out to be an appropriate food for cattle, mainly in tropical climate countries such as Latin American countries. This is due to the high number of species that can be used, the possibility of growing them year-round, the ability of the ruminant to use fibrous supplies and be an economic source (Sánchez et al., Data mining and big data. DMBD 2018. Lecture notes in computer science, vol 10943. Springer, Cham, 2018, [1]). In this work, an application of neural networks was carried out in the forecasting of more accurate values of production and quality of grasslands

The Goal Programming as a Tool for Measuring the Sustainability of Agricultural Production Chains of Rice

Agricultural activity is characterized by an intensive use of capital and a considerable dependence on external financing. Access to credit is often limited by the scarcity of resources and lack of guarantees, seriously affecting the productivity and economic performance of agricultural exploitations. The objective of this paper is to assess the sustainability of agricultural production chain of rice in Latin America using multi-criteria analysis tools to facilitate decision-making through a benchmarking process to contribute to their economic sustainability. The implementation of the model in an exploitation typy depending on financing sources (conservative, intermediate, and innovative) has revealed the conflict between the goals, being the intermediate exploitation, which gets the best results. The conclusions show that the flexibilization of financing options positively affects the economic performance

Application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process to Riparian Revegetation Policy Options

While riparian vegetation can play a major role in protecting land, water and natural habitat in catchments, there are high costs associated with tree planting and establishment and in diverting land from cropping. The distribution of costs and benefits of riparian revegetation creates conflicts in the objectives of various stakeholder groups, and elicitation of importance weights of objectives and determination of rankings of a number of policy options by these stakeholder groups becomes critical in decision-making. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a multicriteria analysis technique that provides an appropriate tool to accommodate the conflicting views of various stakeholder groups. The AHP allows the users to assess the relative importance of multiple criteria (or multiple alternatives against a given criterion) in an intuitive manner. This paper presents an application of AHP to obtain preference weights of environmental, social and economic objectives which have been used in ranking riparian revegetation policy options in a small catchment (watershed) in north Queensland, Australia. The preference weights towards environmental, economic and social objectives have been obtained for the various stakeholder groups (landholders, representatives of local sugar mill staff, environmentalists, recreational fishers and the local community). The AHP technique has proved useful in eliciting objectives and ranking policy options as well as in checking for consistency of the statements of stakeholder groups. Implementation of this approach requires a complex data elicitation process

Multifunctional natural forest silviculture economics revised: Challenges in meeting landowners’ and society’s wants: A review

Aim of study: This paper objective focuses on the contribution of multifunctional natural forest silviculture, incorporating both private and public product managements, to forest and woodland economics. Area of study: Spain and California (USA) Material and methods: This conceptual article has developed a critical revision of the existing literature on the main economic issues for the multifunctional natural forest silviculture in the last decades. Main results: Multifunctional natural silviculture has secular roots as a local practice, but as a science of the natural environment applied to the economic management of forest lands it is still in the process of maturation. Timber silviculture remains the central concern of forest economics investment in scientific publications. By contrast, silvicultural modeling of the natural growth of firewood, browse and other non-timber forest products from trees and shrubs receives scant attention in scientific journals. Even rarer are publications on multifunctional natural silviculture for forest and woodland managements, including environmental services geared to people’s active and passive consumption. Under this umbrella, private environmental self-consumption is represented by the amenities enjoyed by private non-industrial landowners. As for environmental public products, the most relevant are carbon, water, mushrooms, recreation, landscape and threatened biodiversity. Research highlights: This paper is a good example for the conceptual research on forestry techniques and economic concepts applied to multifunctional silviculture in Mediterranean areas of Spain and California. The combination of technical knowledge and private and public economic behaviors definitively contributes to the multifunctional management of natural forest systems

A multi-criteria sustainability assessment framework: development and application in comparing two food waste management options using a UK region as a case study

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Environmental Science and Pollution Research. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2479-

Rentabilidad económica y turnos óptimos de choperas en España

In this paper the financial rotations and profitabilities of the underlying investments in Spanish poplar plantations are dealed. With that purpose are studied the following clons: Campeador, I-214 and I-MC. It is also studied the effects on financial rotations and profitabilities of the economic acids contemplated by the Royal Decree 378/93 which attempts to encourage forest investments in agriculture farms.En este trabajo se analizan los turnos financieros óptimos y las rentabilidades de las inversiones subyacentes de plantaciones de chopos en España. En este sentido, se trabaja con los clones sobre los que existen datos disponibles, que son: Campeador, I-214 y I-MC. Asimismo, se estudia el efecto que sobre los turnos y rentabilidades obtenidas tienen las ayudas recogidas en el Real Decreto 378/93, que pretende fomentar las inversiones forestales en explotaciones agrarias