MULTICRITERION ANALYSIS AND THE EVALUATION OF RESTORATION POLICIES FOR A RHINE ESTUARY

In 1991, two decades after the Dutch installed drainage sluices at Har ingvliet in the Rhine delta, in the process converting the Haringvliet -Hollandsch Diep-Biesbosch (HHB) estuary into a tidally-damped, fresh- water system, a study was commissioned to evaluate alternative managem ent policies for that system. Among those policies were ones which wou ld at least partially restore estuarine conditions to the HHB. Policie s were defined in terms of alternative programs for sluice operation a nd for cleanup of contaminated bottom sediments. This paper describes the public policy analysis comprising the study, focusing on the role played by the Analytic Hierarchy Process and multicriterion analysis ( MCA) in general, and on the aspects of the decision-making context whi ch made the use of MCA so effective.