Method for gauging limits to foresight in environmental decision making

article presents a mathematically-based method for gauging the limits to fo resight in environmental decision making. The method will be useful to envi ronmental decision makers for structuring environmental problems that are c haracterized by potentially crippling amount of uncertainty. The method pro duces as output a measure of determinateness (i.e., the amount of informati on) for each key decision variable based on inputs of lower and upper cumul ative distribution functions for each variable for periods into the future. A visualization of the outputs is presented that effectively communicates the limits to foresight for key variables in the analysis. How this informa tion can be used to guide decision strategy is illustrated through an examp le: strategic planning for municipal solid waste reading. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc.