MULTICRITERION ANALYSIS OF FOREST WATERSHED MANAGEMENT ALTERNATIVES1

ABSTRACT: The impacts of alternative forest watershed management practices are examined from a multicriterion viewpoint in order to select the most satisfactory management scheme. The selection process is carried out using two types of multicriterion decision making techniques: the outranking types of ELECTRE I and II, and the distance-based type of compromise programming (CP). The process is illustrated using the U.S. Forest Service Beaver Creek Experimental Watershed in the Salt-Verde River Basin of Arizona as an example. The desired objectives of the experimental study and the alternative forest watershed resources management schemes are transformed into an evaluation matrix of alternatives versus criteria array. Analyses of the matrix using the aforementioned techniques result in a complete preference ordering of the feasible alternatives in the cases of ELECTRE LI and CP and a partial ordering when ELECTRE I is used. In addition, some sensitivity analyses have been performed and showed ELECTRE II and CP to be fairly robust with respect to parameter changes, while ELECTRE I being highly sensitive to changes in threshold levels. Overall the three techniques pointed out that 65 percent vegetation cut is the best management scheme, while the next best is shown to be 50 percent vegetation cut.     

MARSH DEVELOPMENT AT RESTORATION SITES ON THE WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE RESERVATION,ARIZONA1

ABSTRACT: To prioritize sites for riparian restoration, resource managers need to understand how recovery processes vary within landscapes. Complex relationships between watershed conditions and riparian development make it difficult to predict the outcomes of restoration treatments in the semiarid Southwest. Large floods in 1993 scoured riparian areas in the Carrizo watershed on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in east‐central Arizona. We evaluated recovery at three of these sites using repeated photographs and measurements of channel cross sections and stream‐side vegetation along permanent transects. The sites were mapped as lying on the same soil type, had similar streamside vegetative communities, and were similarly treated through livestock exclusion and supplemental seeding. However, the sites and individual reaches within the sites followed strikingly different development paths. Dramatic recovery occurred at a perennial reach where cover of emergent wetland plants increased from 4.7 percent (standard error = 0.8 percent) in October 1995 to 55.5 percent (standard error = 2.7 percent) in September 2001. At several other reaches, geologic and hydro geomorphic characteristics of the sites limited inputs of fine sediment or surface water, resulting in modest or negligible increases in emergent cover. Recovery efforts for highly valued marshlands in this region should prioritize perennial reaches in low gradient valleys where salty sediments are abundant.     

Factors driving deforestation in common-pool resources in northern Mexico

The theory of collective action has been extensively used to explain the relationship between common-based property regimes and the conservation of natural resources. However, there are two key components of the theory that literature reports as puzzles in which no consensus exists about their effect on the performance of common-pool resources. These are group size and heterogeneity. This study analyzes the effects of these two key components on the effectiveness of community-based forestry, called ejidos, to protect their forest resources in northern Mexico. We used a multinomial logit model to determine the contribution of 16 explanatory variables to the dependent variable, a measure of success of ejidos defined by the presence of deforested, degraded, or forested conditions. The results show that corn yield, marginality, percent of forest area, total population, a forest value index, distance to markets, roads and towns, were all statistically significant in driving deforested conditions. Deforestation becomes more attractive for poor communities and as corn yield and distance to towns, roads, and markets decrease. In general, group size and heterogeneity had no significant effects on the presence of deforested conditions. Deforestation is driven by resource-specific characteristics, such as location and soil productivity, not by ejidos' attributes, such as total area or number of members. We argue that current institutional policies focusing on the structure of property right arrangements should be shifted (1) to provide better technology for land cultivation; (2) to reduce the marginality problem in poor communities; and (3) to strengthen local institutions.     

SELECTING A MULTICRITERION DECISION MAKING TECHNIQUE FOR WATERSHED RESOURCES MANAGEMENT1

ABSTRACT: A method for selecting a most appropriate multicritenon decision making (MCDM) technique for watershed resources management is modeled as a multicriterion problem. The procedure consists of identifying a set of feasible MCDM techniques, and evaluating them with respect to four sets of choice criteria, namely (1) problem related, (2) decision-maker (DM)/analyst related, (3) technique-related, and (4) solution-related criteria. Altogether 15 techniques are evaluated in terms of 24 criteria, forming an evaluation matrix of criteria versus alternative MCDM techniques. The evaluation matrix is then analyzed by means by a composite programming algorithm resulting in a preference ranking of the alternatives. Application of the techniques to a watershed resources management problem illustrates the method throughout the paper. (KEY TERMS: alternative selection; watershed resources management; multicriterion decision making; composite programming.)