Practical sustainability criteria for decision-making

SUMMARY

The new paradigm of sustainability necessitates revisions to traditional decision-making processes. This paper, which is the first in a series of four, outlines the changes required for decision-making to reflect sustainability concerns. Three sustainability criteria, that are the focus of the three subsequent papers, are introduced and the rationale for each is explained. A framework for incorporating the three sustainability criteria into the decision-making process is briefly outlined. The paper ends with the introduction to a case study, the North Central Project (NCP) for electricity supply alternatives. The NCP is used in the three following papers to demonstrate the individual components of the new approach to sustainable decision-making.     

基于群组决策和模糊层次分析法的城市公共安全评价

为科学地评估城市公共安全现状,根据我国城市公共安全的特点及国家城市安全规划的相关要求,从能力和脆弱性两方面构建了多层次多指标的城市公共安全评价指标体系。通过群组决策和模糊层次分析法,针对不同的指标考虑专家的个体权威和专家群体意见的一致性,引入综合重要度将专家个体判断矩阵集结成群体关于指标权重的判断矩阵,通过群体判断矩阵计算各评价指标的权重。最后根据可拓学理论构建多级可拓评价模型对某市公共安全灾害要素子系统进行评价,得出其安全状况属较安全等级,同时也证明该方法在城市公共安全评价中有较好的适用性。     

基于地表沉陷控制的膏体充填材料的性能优化研究

充填材料性能是充填开采控制地表沉陷的一个重要因素,为克服传统充填材料性能优化试验耗时长、成本高、人为误差较大的缺点,探索将传统正交试验与模糊决策相结合进行充填材料性能优化。基于L9(33)正交试验,确定了S1~S55组充填材料性能优选方案。在综合分析充填材料性能影响因素的基础上,建立充填材料性能优化指标体系,构建AHP-FUZZY模糊综合优选模型对方案进行比选,并分析了正交试验中各因素水平变化对最优方案的敏感性。结果表明:膏体充填材料性能最优方案为“S4”即水泥含量15%,灰矸比1∶2,质量浓度75%,决策结果与试验结果相符,且“灰矸比”对充填材料性能优化的敏感性程度最高,在实际膏体充填开采中要严格控制粉煤灰和煤矸石掺量。     

基于案例推理的突发环境事件应急决策模型

突发环境事件不确定性高、演化过程复杂,给企业及政府的应急工作带来很大的困难,故如何提高应急决策的质量,是相关应急工作的重点之一。为了增强以往经验的可用性,利用本体模型进行案例的存储,根据情景构成要素提取方法对情景进行多维的空间表达,在此基础上优化情景匹配算法,实现基于情景的应急决策。最后,通过突发环境事件实例应用,验证该方法能够快速建立实例与本体模型之间的关系,提高知识的可用性和共享性,实现情景的多维表达,进而满足“情景-应对”的应急决策要求。     

The challenge of biased evidence in conservation

Efforts to tackle the current biodiversity crisis need to be as efficient and effective as possible given chronic underfunding. To inform decision-makers of the most effective conservation actions, it is important to identify biases and gaps in the conservation literature to prioritize future evidence generation. We used the Conservation Evidence database to assess the state of the global literature that tests conservation actions for amphibians and birds. For the studies in the database, we investigated their spatial and taxonomic extent and distribution across biomes, effectiveness metrics, and study designs. Studies were heavily concentrated in Western Europe and North America for birds and particularly for amphibians, and temperate forest and grassland biomes were highly represented relative to their percentage of land coverage. Studies that used the most reliable study designs—before-after control-impact and randomized controlled trials—were the most geographically restricted and scarce in the evidence base. There were negative spatial relationships between the numbers of studies and the numbers of threatened and data-deficient species worldwide. Taxonomic biases and gaps were apparent for amphibians and birds—some entire orders were absent from the evidence base—whereas others were poorly represented relative to the proportion of threatened species they contained. Metrics used to evaluate effectiveness of conservation actions were often inconsistent between studies, potentially making them less directly comparable and evidence synthesis more difficult. Testing conservation actions on threatened species outside Western Europe, North America, and Australasia should be prioritized. Standardizing metrics and improving the rigor of study designs used to test conservation actions would also improve the quality of the evidence base for synthesis and decision-making.     

Making Collaborative Watershed Management Work: The Confluence of State and Regional Initiatives

Initiatives in the Neponset, Ipswich, and Sudbury-Assabet-Concord watersheds highlight how watershed-scale innovation in engaging nongovernment participants is influenced, but not dominated, by the statewide program, the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative. The presence or absence of three elements—external support, process, and issue—and the order in which they occur, shape the viability of collaborative watershed-scale management initiatives. External support includes providing personnel or funding from outside an initiative. Process is the interaction among individuals undertaking watershed-wide policy development and/or implementation. An issue is an attention-requiring concern, vital to a watershed, that can most effectively be addressed by a coordinated strategy among different parties. A process generated by an issue is sustainable and amenable to enhancement through external support. The contribution of external support is most apparent when outside assistance is provided after an issue has crystallized into clear problem needs that can be addressed through specific research projects or implementation activities. Process is central in shaping issues, utilizing external support, and generating management results. The outcomes of voluntary processes in the three watershed initiatives highlight how the evolution of the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative leads to, and depends upon, the development of watershed-scale initiatives.     

小城镇突发公共事件应急决策系统的研究

近年来,突发公共事件的应急研究是研究热点,但对小城镇却缺少应有的关注和重视.本文剖析了当前小城镇突发公共事件应急管理存在的弊端,简要介绍了小城镇突发公共事件应急决策系统的设计与实现,包括应急预案、历史灾情库和法律法规库三大功能.着重论述了小城镇突发公共事件应急流程和预案的框架要素,并分析了应急决策系统与小城镇应急管理体制的融合机制问题.     

KNOWLEDGE UTILIZATION IN WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE NETHERLANDS RELATED TO DESICCATION1

ABSTRACT: The use of scientific knowledge in environmental policy making is an important topic. However, the relation between knowledge producers and policy makers is not a straightforward producer-user relationship. The development of a national desiccation policy in the Netherlands and the implementation of desiccation plans in local situations are used as a case study to investigate the knowledge policy relationship. Three theoretical explanations were used to analyze this case: a difference between the cultures of producers and users; a different rationality of the policy making and research processes; and processes of social construction of problem definitions which imply that different knowledge stocks are used depending on the framing of the policy problem. Emergence of the policy issue at the national level is demonstrated to develop in close interaction between knowledge producers and policy makers, while the interactions at the local level were more based on integration of expert knowledge through personal expertise and closely tied to the development of management plans. This case study thus reveals a difference between general knowledge supporting measures at the national policy level and the way in which specific knowledge is applied in local cases. Therefore more attention should be paid to the translation of policy problems from rather high levels of political authority to the conceptualization at lower management levels. A final conclusion is that knowledge use in Dutch desiccation policy can be understood by pointing to multiple theoretical perspectives. The rational actor model and a construc-tivist perspective turned out to be especially useful in explaining the different ways knowledge was used at the national and the local level.     

Decision making: With applications for environmental management

The two major processes of decision making, behavioral interactions and decision analysis, are discussed. Comparisons are made between the Delphi and NGT methods of behavioral interaction. Three different types of decision analysis are compared, including the Goals Achievement Matrix, Concordance Analysis, and the Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique. Decision making problems characteristic of environmental studies are reviewed. A method of decision making that combines the best qualities of other methods is suggested. The overall purpose of this paper is to make the technical knowledge of decision making useful to environmentalists, businessmen, citizens, and politicians, and to improve the process of policy making in environmental studies.     

LIMITS ON THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAME OF REFERENCE IN WATER RESOURCE DECISION-MAKING1

Study of water resource decision-making in Massachusetts demonstrates the existence of many institutional constraints such as the established fee system for consulting engineers, the funding of certain agencies, the institutionalization of equity concerns, overrepresentation of interests, and incompatibility of agency goals. These institutional constraints are attributable in part to certain broadly-based value-orientations such as the American pragmatic tradition. However, various lines of evidence indicate that these constraints are less important than other factors in the etiology of decisional outcomes. The outcomes of the decision processes were found to be at variance with the decisions studied, a fact leading to the conclusion that choice of decisions for study should be given more attention. The authors conclude that institutional constraints are important if one is interested in studying how decisions are made, but that what actually happens in the long run cannot be easily ascertained by studying either institutions or the decision-making process. They suggest the need for more research utilizing the incremental theories of Carl Lindblom and the side-effect theories of Albert O. Hirschman.