Introduction, rationale, and relevance of MODSS. Addressing diverse client needs. MODSS methodologies, tools, components, and integration. Applicability to economic, social, policy, risk, and sustainability issues. Applicability to national, regional, and global issues.

Providing useful insights on the use of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in natural resource management, this book examines a number of empirical applications for several countries and a variety of natural resources. It is shown that using MCDA in the management of water, forestry, wetland and other natural resources can substantially improve the design and implementation of natural resource and environmental policies. Stakeholder involvement is also an important determinant of successful resource management and MCDA provides a useful and effective framework for getting stakeholders involved in resource management decisions. Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Natural Resource Management gives in-depth analysis of the potential problems in applying these techniques, including difficulties eliciting required information, lack of suitable measures for environmental variables and the need to develop innovative methods to simplify the use of MCDA.

This book outlines the creative process of making environmental management decisions using the approach called Structured Decision Making. It is a short introductory guide to this popular form of decision making and is aimed at environmental managers and scientists. This is a distinctly pragmatic label given to ways for helping individuals and groups think through tough multidimensional choices characterized by uncertain science, diverse stakeholders, and difficult tradeoffs. This is the everyday reality of environmental management, yet many important decisions currently are made on an ad hoc basis that lacks a solid value-based foundation, ignores key information, and results in selection of an inferior alternative. Making progress – in a way that is rigorous, inclusive, defensible and transparent – requires combining analytical methods drawn from the decision sciences and applied ecology with deliberative insights from cognitive psychology, facilitation and negotiation. The authors review key methods and discuss case-study examples based in their experiences in communities, boardrooms, and stakeholder meetings. The goal of this book is to lay out a compelling guide that will change how you think about making environmental decisions. Visit www.wiley.com/go/gregory/ to access the figures and tables from the book.

Energy management problems associated with rapid institutional, political, technical, ecological, social and economic development have been of critical concern to both national and local governments worldwide for many decades; thus, addressing such issues is a global priority.

In recent years, much work has been done in formulating and clarifying the concept of sustainable development and related theoretical and research issues. Now, the challenge has shifted to designing and stimulating processes of effective planning and decision-making, at all levels of human activity, in such a way as to achieve local and global sustainable development. Information technology can help a great deal in achieving sustainable development by providing well-designed and useful tools for decision makers. One such tool is the decision support system, or DSS. This book explores the area of DSS in the context of sustainable development. As DSS is a very new technique, especially in the developing world, this book will serve as a reference text, primarily for managers, government officials, and information professionals in developing countries. It covers the concept of sustainable development, defines DSS and how it can be used in the planning and management of sustainable development, and examines the state of the art in DSS use. Other interested readers will include students, teachers, and analysts in information sciences; DSS designers, developers, and implementors; and international development agencies.

Although two thirds of the earth s surface is covered with water, the exploitable fresh water is considered to be scarce in most parts of the world. On the other hand, the rapid increases in population growth and economic development greatly exacerbate the water demand as well as pollution, and it is expected that coping with water problems will be harder in the future. Therefore, Integrated Water Resources Management is the way forward, however, this is a quite difficult decision making process due to multiple stakeholders with multiple priorities/preferences and uncertainty in hydrology. This book provides an approach to develop and illustrate a water resources management model that will facilitate indicator-based decisions with respect to environmental, social and economic dimensions in a multi criteria perspective. It also describes a methodology for analyzing supply and demand scenarios jointly and to evaluate the impact of management alternatives for making robust decisions under uncertainty. This book is beneficial to engineers operational in the field of water planning and management or research.