A Concept for Testing Decision Support Tools in Participatory Processes Applied to the ToSIA Tool

Diana Tuomasjukka,Marcus Lindner,David Edwards

doi:10.3390/challe4010034

Diana Tuomasjukka, Marcus Lindner + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/challe4010034

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Journal: Challenges	Publication Date: Apr 17, 2013
Citations: 39	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: European Forest Institute, Forest Research

Abstract

ToSIA (Tool for Sustainability Impact Assessment) offers a transparent and consistent methodological framework to assess impacts of changes (technological, policy, management, etc.) in the forest-based sector. This tool is able to facilitate the decision making process within and between diverse groups of stakeholders (e.g., forest managers and policymakers) as it provides a neutral, transparent and data-driven platform for stakeholder interaction and communication. To test these capabilities of ToSIA, a practical approach to test if a decision support system is suitable for participatory processes was developed based on a set of evaluation criteria for participatory processes. ToSIA’s performance was assessed and discussed in different categories against a selection of criteria for successful participatory processes: six criteria were fulfilled by ToSIA, in nine, ToSIA is potentially helpful, in two, criteria ToSIA has no influence, and for three criteria, no experiences exist until now. As a result, ToSIA’s conceptual suitability as a participatory decision support system was confirmed for two interlinked roles: as a decision support system to assess alternative scenarios, and as a communication platform for stakeholder interaction.

Highlights

Today’s regional planning and development processes are expected to meet sustainability requirements, and to be based on sound scientifically approved results that are open to public scrutiny.This poses challenges for decision makers and calls for decision support tools which are suitable for application as part of participatory processes [1].The concept of sustainability has evolved and grown during recent decades, in response to demands from the ongoing policy process and taking commitments made by EU member states into account.The European Commission decided on a Forestry Strategy for the European Union [2] to establish a framework for forest-related actions in support of sustainable forest management (SFM)
The aim of this study was to test the suitability of the ToSIA tool as a participatory decision support systems” (pDSS) against the features and criteria developed by Menzel et al [1] to show if the criteria are suitable, how they can be applied in practice and can be applied to other DSS
In the following the four features are used for an initial evaluation of the suitability of ToSIA as pDSS, with an explanation in which ways ToSIA addresses each feature

Summary

Introduction

Today’s regional planning and development processes are expected to meet sustainability requirements, and to be based on sound scientifically approved results that are open to public scrutiny.This poses challenges for decision makers and calls for decision support tools which are suitable for application as part of participatory processes [1].The concept of sustainability has evolved and grown during recent decades, in response to demands from the ongoing policy process and taking commitments made by EU member states into account.The European Commission decided on a Forestry Strategy for the European Union [2] to establish a framework for forest-related actions in support of sustainable forest management (SFM). Today’s regional planning and development processes are expected to meet sustainability requirements, and to be based on sound scientifically approved results that are open to public scrutiny. This poses challenges for decision makers and calls for decision support tools which are suitable for application as part of participatory processes [1]. The concept of sustainability has evolved and grown during recent decades, in response to demands from the ongoing policy process and taking commitments made by EU member states into account. The European Commission decided on a Forestry Strategy for the European Union [2] to establish a framework for forest-related actions in support of sustainable forest management (SFM).

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