Basic Principles of Decision Making in Natural Resources and the Environment

Abstract

As public land management merges biophysical, social, and economic objectives, management decision criteria become more extensive. Many of these criteria are value-laden, and yet are not easily expressed in monetary terms. Utility theory has traditionally been the decision model proffered by the management science and operations research communities. More recently, however, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has also received considerable attention, primarily because it places greater emphasis on the decision makers’ preferences structures. A simple example of the AHP, for college enrolment, illustrates many of the method’s salient features, and some of the underlying mathematics. A brief review of some applications of the AHP in natural resources management is also included. Land management agencies need to establish decision models that provide some structure for how decision-support information is organized and applied, so that decisions are made openly within a well-defined framework. In doing so, decision accountability and justification are achieved concomitantly with the process itself.