COMPARING MULTICRITERIA METHODS IN THE CONTEXT OF ENVIRONMENTAL-PROBLEMS

The present paper gives an analysis of the use of ELECTRE III, PROMETH EE I, II, and SMART decision-aids in the context of four different rea l applications to environmental problems in Finland. These methods are widely used decision-aids in the real planning processes. The purpose of this study is to define the differences of these methods and the r esults obtained with them, and in this way also to consider their appl icability in aiding environmental decision-making. Furthermore, a comp arison of the methods based on a set of randomly generated problems is carried out. The choice in practice will not be easy; PROMETHEE does not differ much from SMART with linear value functions, and in many ca ses this holds for ELECTRE III, too. However, in a particular problem the 'best alternatives' obtained with these methods may differ greatly . Therefore, the conclusion is that it is better to use several method s for the same problem when possible; when not, we recommend the use o f ELECTRE III. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.