Using environmental indicators to quantify the robustness of policy alternatives to uncertainty

Understanding and managing environmental risk is one of the major challenge s of our time. The variability of ecological systems, wherein disturbances occur with uncertain frequency and magnitude over time and space, is essent ial for maintaining ecosystem integrity and resilience. This paper uses sus tainable development indicators to improve multiple-objective environmental decision making under conditions of unknown variability. Specifically, the robustness to uncertainty of competing policy alternatives is assessed usi ng multi-attribute value theory and the recently developed information gap methodology. The management of spruce-budworm outbreaks in the forests of N ew Brunswick, Canada, is used as an illustrative example. Numerical and the oretical results show how the minimum required return and the available pri or information determine which alternative can best cope with environmental uncertainty. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.