CVL300

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND IMPACT

ASSESSMENT
Lecture 13:
EVALUATION: THE MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION PROBLEM
 Evaluation Of Alternatives
• 3rd essential element of EA
• the logic to say “no” and the choice among
alternatives to say “yes”
• key issue is “the method” of evaluation
• multi-objective and multi-criteria problem
• dis-aggregrated and put back together to
synthesize the overall impact
• evaluate whether we can decide the fate
of this project.
 Challenge in Evaluation

Impacts

Integrated
Proposed View of Decision
Action for Impacts
All alternatives

Aggregation
Disaggregation

Phase 1: Analysis Phase 2: Synthesis

Go-transit Routing Project
 Ideal Evaluation Method
• systematically counts up the “goods” and
“bads” for each alternative
• indicates what is valued more than
something else
Irresolvable Multi-criterion Decision Problem

• Multiple objectives (e.g. maintain water

quality, provide adequate capacity, etc.)
are binary choices.
• Multiple criteria (e.g. dissolved oxygen > 5
mg/L, hectares of Class 1 agricultural farm
land) are many and in different units of
measurement
How To Value The Evaluation Criteria?
• Should it be a public choice process, open
to public, transparent to public, and
responsive to public?
• Get public to value the environmental
features and let the proponent use them to
evaluate and suggest the favourable
choice.
 Evaluation Methods
• In the pre-EA past, alternative methods
were evaluated by proponent judgement
and usually based on proponent interests.
• EA has forced the proponent to show how
the decision is made.
• Without explicit method, the proponent is
free to decide.
Problems of Evaluation Methods
• Weights (intuitive and judgemental,
independent of one another, a prior)
• Measurement units (common scale could
be $)
• Aggregation (visual inspection, grand
index)
• Decision criterion
 Significant Impacts
• All EA legislations indicate that projects
which cause “significant impact” should be
rejected.
• “significant impact” is highly subjective.
• “significant” is a “collective judgement” of
assessors, stakeholders, and affected
public and is an expression of values.
How to judge significant impacts?
• Probability of occurrence
• Magnitude of impact
• Duration
• Reversibility
• Environmental policy
Characteristics of a Good Evaluation Method

• Objective evaluation
• Systematic evaluation
• Rational evaluation
• Ease of use and operation