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Decision Support Systems for Risk-Based Management of Contaminated Sites pp 1–21Cite as

Decision Support Systems and Environment: Role of MCDA

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Abstract

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are computer-based tools designed to support management decisions (Eom, 2001). Many environmental applications of DSS are reported in the current literature, including petroleum contamination detection (Geng et al., 2001), lake remediation (Gallego et al., 2004), soil decontamination (Zhiying et al., 2003), and many others. However, many of these DSS are in fact different models integrated to better visualize data or describe systems; they are not tailored to address specific decision problems or help decision makers in making inevitable trade-offs. Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), on the other hand, offers the ability to integrate policy preferences with the judgements of technical experts (Figueira et al., 2005; Linkov et al., 2007). MCDA methods enable simultaneous consideration of stakeholder interests and technical evaluations, utilizing rigorous scientific methods to process technical information. MCDA is especially important in situations of significant uncertainty and data scarcity, such as management and restoration of contaminated sites. This Chapter focuses on the conceptual background of MCDA, with particular attention paid to environmental DSS, and it discusses some of the most commonly used approaches, especially for multi-attribute decision problems (i.e. where both criteria and alternatives are finite in number).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On the other side, outranking methods usually originate a partial pre-order.

  2. 2.

    Indeed, the OWA operator is a particular case of the Choquet integral, see later.

  3. 3.

    Among all the other ones, we limit to quote the ClusDM approach (Clustering for Decision Making) (Valls, 2003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Mathematics, University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, Italy

    Silvio Giove

Authors
  1. Silvio Giove
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  2. Adriana Brancia
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  3. F. Kyle Satterstrom
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  4. Igor Linkov
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipto. Sicenze Ambientali, Università Ca¿ Foscari di Venezia, Calle Larga S. Marta 2137, Venice, 10023, Italy

    Antonio Marcomini

  2. National Ctr. Environmental Assessment, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, W. Martin Luther King Dr. 26, Cincinnati, 45268, U.S.A.

    Glenn Walter Suter II

  3. Dipto. Sicenze Ambientali, Università Ca¿ Foscari di Venezia, Calle Larga S. Marta 2137, Venice, 10023, Italy

    Andrea Critto

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Giove, S., Brancia, A., Satterstrom, F.K., Linkov, I. (2009). Decision Support Systems and Environment: Role of MCDA. In: Marcomini, A., Suter II, G., Critto, A. (eds) Decision Support Systems for Risk-Based Management of Contaminated Sites. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09722-0_3

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