Deliberative Multi-criteria Evaluation Research Articles

Exploring stakeholders’ ecosystem services perceptions across Massachusetts Bays using deliberative valuation

Deliberative methods to assess ecosystem services values formalize community members’ and stakeholders’ involvement in decision-making related to natural resources management. This paper presents the methodological design and the application of a deliberative multicriteria evaluation (DMCE) method that combines the advantages of deliberation with structured decision-making to assess community-based values of four coastal ecosystem services (valued by indicators such as Total Nitrogen, Blue Carbon, Scallop Landings, Fish Abundance) and explore the spatial variability of group values along the Massachusetts coastline. We implemented four virtual deliberative workshops consisting of stakeholders from four Massachusetts Bays (MassBays) estuarine categorizations to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data came from individual survey results and group preferences, while qualitative data were derived through the analysis of video recordings and transcripts of deliberations. Compared to previous studies, we combined quantitative and qualitative data by using applied thematic and co-occurrence analysis to identify themes of discussion during the deliberative process. Our results show that coastal stakeholders place a particular emphasis on access to clean water and services that directly support human wellbeing and provide direct economic benefits. Differences in the quantitative and qualitative results of these deliberative tasks between groups provide insight into the need for localized policymaking instead of solely regional or statewide management. Environmental managers and policymakers will utilize these insights to address local values and priorities as they work towards implementing habitat restoration efforts.

Responding to Social Distancing in Conducting Stakeholder Workshops in COVID-19 Era

In March 2020, COVID-19 disrupted global society. Impacts as a result of COVID-19 were seen in all industries, including higher education research, which was paused in order to accommodate newly imposed restrictions. Social science research, specifically stakeholder engagement research, was one area that was potentially impacted given its need for person-to-person interaction. Here, we describe how we successfully adjusted our stakeholder engagement methodology to accommodate for socially distant requirements. Initially, we planned to host in-person workshops to assess stakeholder perceptions of microplastics impacts on oysters in Boston Harbor and coastal Massachusetts using the deliberative multicriteria evaluation (DMCE) methodology. To transfer these workshops online, we used familiar, open-access platforms, Zoom and GoogleDrive, to enable dialogue among participants and evaluate preferences. While modifications to length (5 to 3 h) and order (participants were asked to watch expert videos before their participation date) of the workshop were necessary, most other elements of the methodology remained the same for the online format. The main element that was lacking was the in-person interactions. However, with video conferencing tools available, this element was not completely lost.

Linking deliberative evaluation with integrated assessment and modelling: A methodological framework and its application to agricultural water management

Dealing jointly with both systemic and social complexity is a challenge that we face with sustainability issues. However, joining these two aspects of complexity is more a “post-normal science” call than an effective practice. Roughly speaking, analytical-systemic approaches focus on the complex-system side, while deliberative approaches deal with the multi-actor side. Our framework for evaluating different alternative actions, called the S2CE, is intended to reconcile the two approaches. It takes as premises: the recognition of plural values, which makes competing actions only weakly comparable; and the existence of irreducible uncertainties, which gives a heuristic status to the future. The framework hybridises an integrated assessment and modelling exercise, with a deliberative multi-criteria evaluation one, and concludes with a reflexive stage. Application to agricultural water management illustrates the strength of this cross-fertilization. First, the use of computer simulations has been found to enrich collective deliberation by helping stakeholders form and transform their value judgments, and by raising critical questions about options that appeared consensual. Second, the deliberative evaluation informed the integrated assessment and modelling by revealing some model limitations, along with the model’s unequal capacity to reflect the claims of different stakeholders.

Representing future generations in the deliberative valuation of ecosystem services

Even though decisions taken today about managing ecosystem services are likely to have an effect on future generations’ well-being, decision making is based largely on current generations’ values, including altruistic concern for posterity. Deliberative forms of citizen engagement can provide a methodological framework for incorporating sustainability considerations in the valuation task and for understanding the reasoning behind peoples’ choices. This paper uses a deliberative form of citizen engagement to better understand the temporal dimensions of social values by incorporating into the valuation task two plausible future scenarios and assigning to the participants the role of trustees for future generations. In particular, we employed the deliberative multicriteria evaluation (DMCE) method with eleven groups in which a total of 67 participants assessed the relative importance of ten ecosystem services in the Upper Merrimack River watershed in New Hampshire. Our results suggest that a deliberative form of citizen engagement provides the appropriate space for incorporating intergenerational concerns into decision making. Participants set environmental targets by prioritizing the satisfaction of basic human needs, securing human and environmental health, and avoiding the loss of ecosystem services that cannot be substituted and may lead to irreversible future losses. This finding suggests that when preferences are socially constructed, then ethical values underpin valuations, making it possible to integrate ecosystem service tradeoffs into environmental decisions in a manner that respects the environmental rights of future generations.

A novel deliberative multicriteria evaluation approach to ecosystem service valuation

A novel deliberative multicriteria evaluation approach to ecosystem service valuation

Deliberative tools for meeting the challenges of water planning in Australia

Australian governments have set an ambitious policy agenda for reform. By 2010, water plans were to have provided for the return of all overallocated or overused systems to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction, however, many communities do not yet have full confidence in water plans or their processes. In two national research projects we developed practical tools for transparent and engaging processes to build confidence in water planning. We observe that inherent politicised risks in water planning mean that current methods of public participation, such as information giving and allowing written submissions, are ‘safer’ and more easily managed. The next article in this special issue sets out the methodology including performance indicators for the tools that we used in the research. To demonstrate their role in building community confidence using best available science we trialled tools which included agent-based participatory modelling, deliberative multi-criteria evaluation, social impact assessment, and groundwater visualisation models. The suite of ‘good-practice’ tools, including Indigenous engagement, is fully described in the following articles of this special issue. Evaluations show deliberative processes have much to offer when applied to questions that have been developed collaboratively and formulated carefully to allow implementation of findings. Interactive tools and those which have high visual impact are consistently rated highly by all sectors of the community, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and also by water planners. These results have implications for water planning internationally especially where science is contested, social values are uncertain, and communities are diverse.

Incorporating uncertainty and social values in managing invasive alien species: a deliberative multi-criteria evaluation approach

The management of Invasive Alien Species (IAS) is stymied by complex social values and severe levels of uncertainty. However, these two challenges are often hidden in the conventional model of management by “value-free” analyses and probability-based estimates of risk. As a result, diverse social values and wide margins of error in risk assessment carry zero weights in the decision-making process, leaving IAS risk decisions to be made in the wake of political pressure and the crisis atmosphere of incursion. We propose to use a Deliberative Multi-Criteria Evaluation (DMCE) to incorporate multiple social values and profound uncertainty into decision-making processes. The DMCE process combines the advantages of conventional multi-criteria decision analysis methods with the benefits of stakeholder participation to provide an analytical structure to assess complex multi-dimensional objectives. It, therefore, offers an opportunity for diverse views to enter the decision-making process, and for the negotiation of consensus positions. The DMCE process can also function as a platform for risk communication in which scientists, stakeholders, and decision-makers can interact and discuss the uncertainty associated with biological invasions. We examine two case studies that demonstrate how DMCE provides scientific rigor and transparency in the decision-making process of invasion risk management. The first case regards pre-border priority ranking for potential invasive species and the second relates to selecting the most desirable policy option for managing a post-border invader.

An integrated decision-support approach in prioritizing risks of non-indigenous species in the face of high uncertainty

When evaluating the risks of future invasions, we often have sparse information on the likelihood that a species will arrive, establish and spread in a new environment, and on the potential impacts should this occur. Conventional risk assessment, therefore, is limited in providing guidance in managing the risk of non-indigenous species (NIS). However, risk management decisions must be made facing these uncertainties to avoid high and irreversible impacts. We develop an integrated ecological economic modeling and deliberative multi-criteria evaluation (DMCE) approach to support group decision-making in risk prioritization, using an example of ten NIS that could potentially impact Australian plant industries. This innovative approach seeks to combine the advantages of dynamic modeling with the benefits of DMCE in assessing and communicating uncertainty. The model unveils the complexity of the socio-ecological system of biological invasion, with a scenario analysis designed to interactively communicate scientific uncertainty to decision-makers. The DMCE provides a structured approach to identifying stakeholders' key concerns in addressing economic, social, and environmental dimensions of NIS risk explicitly. Functioning as a platform for risk communication, the DMCE also offers an opportunity for diverse views to enter the decision-making process and for the negotiation of consensus consensuses.

Prioritizing Biosecurity Risks Using a Participatory Decision-Making Tool

ABSTRACT A decision framework called Deliberative Multi-Criteria Evaluation (DMCE) was developed and deployed to prioritize biosecurity risks using a variety of subjective and objective information. To aid stakeholders in the prioritization of Emergency Plant Pest (EPP) species risk, we presented them with outputs from a Stella-based bio-economic pest risk model, and probable ecological and socioeconomic impacts. The stakeholder participants weighted the consequence criteria they deemed to have the highest expected impact. The methodology featured an uncertain set of parameters, multiple iterations of criteria weighting along with real-time sensitivity analysis. Of the five criteria, economic cost was weighted the highest at 26% while landscape amenity was weighted the lowest at the 10–12% range. The increased understanding and support gained by stakeholders through the DMCE process provided a greater likelihood of the sanctioning of the policies concerned and progress toward desired outcomes.

Designing a Policy Mix and Sequence for Mitigating Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution in a Water Supply Catchment

Agricultural non-point source pollution, common in water supply catchments worldwide, can have significant environmental and human health impacts, and its mitigation poses a challenge for policymakers. We used deliberative multi-criteria evaluation (DMCE) to identify a mix and sequence of policy instruments (or policy design) to address agricultural non-point source pollution using a case study of Cryptosporidium contamination in the Myponga River water supply catchment, South Australia. The major impediments to adoption of on-farm water quality management and benefits for ecosystem services were identified using a landholder survey for use as decision criteria in DMCE. The DMCE approach involved stakeholders in policy design during two community fora held in the catchment. We developed six policy scenarios and quantified their impact on decision criteria. The relative importance of decision criteria was quantified using swing weights and consensus was reached on the preferred policy scenario. The mix, sequence, and targeting of instruments in the preferred policy scenario were refined based on information obtained through the deliberative process. Impediments to adoption included a lack of both information/knowledge and financial resources. The recommended policy scenario involved targeted information, followed by an incentive program, and finally the regulation of a mandatory code of practice for water quality management. Detailed, catchment-specific context obtained through DMCE was critical for refining an effective mix and sequence of policy instruments. The techniques may be readily used to select and schedule policy instruments for effective mitigation of agricultural non-point source pollution in other drinking water supply catchments elsewhere.

Using an integrated fuzzy set and deliberative multi-criteria evaluation approach to facilitate decision-making in invasive species management

There are two issues at the core of invasive species risk management: on the one hand, decision-makers struggle to balance environmental goals against other often competing societal goals such as economic benefits and social welfare; on the other hand, uncertainty often prevails in understanding the invasion process and in communicating invasion risks to the stakeholders. In this paper, we describe how an integrated Deliberative Multi-Criteria Evaluation (DMCE) and fuzzy set approach can tackle these two issues in the analysis of alternative risk management strategies, using the example of European House Borer (EHB, Hylotrupes bajulus Linnaeus). DMCE offers a platform for stakeholders to interact and to make a trade-off decision between multiple goals based on social learning and deliberation. The fuzzy set approach, applied within a DMCE framework, explicitly incorporates the inherent uncertainty in estimating potential EHB impacts and in evaluating participants' subjective preferences. This integrated method, therefore, provides a promising approach for tackling the dual challenges of competing goals and uncertainty in the evaluation of invasive species risk management options.

Assessing the threat of exotic plant pests

The applicability of multi-criteria evaluation methodologies to complex decision-making processes has been well demonstrated, particularly in cases involving environmental externality problems. However, their use in resource allocation decisions to invasive species risk management is rare. In this paper, a deliberative multi-criteria evaluation technique is applied to a case study in which a jury is asked to prioritise a set of plant pests and diseases in Western Australia. The species chosen were of varying impact, ranging from species with predominantly agricultural impacts to those of purely environmental or social importance to the community. Biological, ecological and economic information was conveyed to jurors before they were asked to rank each species in order of perceived significance to the State's biosecurity system using a Deliberative Multi-criteria Evaluation process. The resultant prioritisation was found to differ from current resource allocations.

Deliberative Multicriteria Evaluation

Multicriteria evaluation (MCE) is a well-tried and effective procedure for structuring and aiding complex decisionmaking processes, especially those involving environmental considerations. Formal deliberative processes have also been successful in aiding understanding and meeting consensus in complex and difficult decision problems which involve more than one decisionmaker. Here, both approaches are combined in a new technique called ‘deliberative multicriteria evaluation’ to assist a group of natural resource managers to decide on a suitable option for recreation and tourism activities in the upper Goulburn–Broken Catchment of Victoria, Australia. This approach is an attempt to combine the advantages of MCE, providing structure and integration in complex decision problems, with the advantages of deliberation and stakeholder interaction provided by a ‘citizens' jury’. An important outcome of the process was the discovery of some crucial aspects of the decision problem that required deeper understanding and assessment if that preferred strategy were to have the desired results. Some suggestions for improving the process are provided but, in general, the stakeholder jury was regarded as a helpful and useful procedure by the decisionmakers and one which aided them in their understanding of the issues of a complex decisionmaking problem.