Multiple attribute decision analysis for ecosystem management

Implementation of an ecosystem approach to natural resource management requ ires evaluation of a broad array of ecological services in a multidimension al, community-based watershed approach that empowers people to make informe d management decisions. Conventional economic approaches that assign values to ecological services (contingent valuation) or that evaluate the efficie ncy of preserving and restoring those services (cost-benefit analysis) are quite limited for this purpose. In addition to the methodological difficult ies encountered in applying contingent valuation and cost-benefit analysis, several problems occur when nonmarket values of ecological services are es timated independently of ecosystem planning and management. Multiple attrib ute decision-making (MADM) is an alternative conceptual framework for evalu ating and selecting land and water resource management systems (LWRMS). Adv antages of MADM are that it facilitates community-based collaborative decis ion-making, avoids some of the ethical, theoretical and practical shortcomi ngs of conventional economic approaches, does not require assigning monetar y Values to ecological services, allows consideration of multiple attribute s and is not culturally biased. The MADM model described in this paper expl ains how a property manager selects the most preferred LWRMS for a property based on their multiple stochastic attributes. Application of the model re quires determination of the technically feasible LWRMS for a property and s pecification of the socially acceptable ranges of attributes. This informat ion is combined with economic/biophysical simulations to derive the efficie nt combination of attributes and LWRMS for a property. The property manager then selects the most preferred combination of attributes from the efficie nt combinations of attributes for a property using utility maximization, su rrogate worth tradeoff, free iterative search, analytical hierarchy process , Aspiration-Reservation Based Decision Support System or stochastic domina nce, A watershed alliance can evaluate the sustainability of the most prefe rred LWRMS for properties in a watershed based on a weak or strong sustaina bility criterion. If the alliance determines that the most preferred LWRMS are not sustainable, then an index of attributes is used to evaluate the co st effectiveness of alternative public policies for stimulating the adoptio n of more sustainable LWRMS. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights rese rved.