Environment and Management – serie

In 1989 the Dutch government published a National Environmental Policy Plan (Dutch abbreviation NMP). This NMP is based on the book Concern for Tomorrow. a national environmental survey by RIVM (the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection). A major conclusion of the RIVM study was that emissions of many pollutants had to be cut by 70 - 90 % in order to reach environmental quality goals. The government accepted the RIVM analysis and consequently ClUTent Dutch environmental policy aims at large reduction of pollutants. Another conclusion of the RIVM study was that such high reduction goals would not be easy to achieve by technological means alone, and that thus structural changes would be required. These changes could eventually lead to sustainable development, which now forms the major focus of Dutch government national environmental policy. This being so, the Dutch government requested that RIVM in subsequent issues of Concern for Tomorrow should investigate the options for sustainable development.

"Definite" is a decision support software package that improves the quality of environmental decision making since it: structures the decision process; makes full use of available information; provides a rational, responsible and justifiable decision that is open for external review; and allows the exploration of all the options by the use of 'what if?' scenarios. "Definite" is, in fact, a whole toolkit of methods that can be used on a wide variety of problems. If there is a problem to be solved and alternative solutions can be identified, then "Definite" can weigh up the alternatives and assess the most reasonable option. The system contains a number of methods for supporting problem definition as well as graphical and other methods to support representation. In the assessment of the problem, "Definite" can support priority allocation in a number of ways. "Definite" can deal with all types of alternatives, thanks to the inclusion of five different multicriteria methods, as well as cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis. Related procedures such as weight assessment, standardization, discounting, and a wide variety of methods for sensitivity analysis are also available."Definite" - allowing for fifty alternatives and fifty effects - supports the whole decision process, from problem definition to report generation. The structured approach adopted ensures that the decisions arrived at are systematic and consistent. The full version of "Definite" comprises: the book, "Multiobjective Decision Support for Environmental Management"; "The Definite User Manual"; the Definite software package; and a helpdesk for user support.

This volume is based on a number of reports prepared over several years for a research project jointly sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau and the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council. Since release of the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, the quest has intensified for methods that combine economic analysis and environmental assessments to achieve the goals of sustainable development. The main purpose of this volume is to explain how this may be accomplished. It combines scientific assessments, economic analysis and governmental procedures in an integrated approach to planning for economic development and environmental protection. The first four chapters explain economic concepts and techniques and their incorporation in EIA procedure. Six case studies are presented, demonstrating practical applications in different countries - Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, the Philippines, Hawaii and Australia.The volume should assist all participants involved in environmental impact assessment: public and private development proponents, environmental and conservation groups, public administrators and decision-makers, and interested members of the public. The book aims to provide a wide perspective on the field by combining economics, EIA techniques, procedures, and institutional aspects.

The concept of sustainable development is a source of inspiration for many, who see it as a call to co-operative action. In practice, however, policies intended to further this goal often generate conflicts of interest. The ensuing disputes occur among governmental organizations, but disputes also arise between public authorities, private interest groups, and the environmental movement. In the opinion of the authors, the fact that environmental policy can provoke such conflict may be attributed largely to decision-making procedures in our society. Accordingly, the authors are convinced that a new approach to managing environmental disputes is needed in order to deal effectively with environmental problems. This book presents a viable alternative, which is called network management.

This work introduces students at institutes of higher education, company management, civil servants, professional designers and process engineers to the field of environmentally oriented product and process improvement. It covers both production and products, and deals with social/economic and technical aspects of the improvement of products and production processes. Another characteristic is the wide range of production processes and products covered, ranging from bakeries to olive growing, from nuclear power plants to glues, from office chairs to breweries, and from television sets to steel plants. Geographical coverage ranges from Sweden to China and from India to Italy and the USA.

Environmental decisions must satisfy a multitude of objectives and the matching of a plan, policy or project to such objectives is a matter of both facts and value judgements. This text provides a systematic approach to the structuring and measurement of value judgements, showing how they drive the decision process and how to make them transparent and effective in support of complex decisions. The value functions that the book describes provide a scheme for the exploration of human values and a tool for transforming them into an analytical model. A clear statement can then be made of the degree to which a decision has achieved its objectives, and how conflicting objectives may be addressed. This does not mean that there is no role for human judgement in the process. Complexity, often coupled with large information gaps, necessitates expert judgement, but the values adopted by the experts are themselves capable of being structured and measured according to the value function methodology presented here, even if the judgements themselves are qualitative and tentative. Value models for expert panels are also presented.The use of the methodology in practice is illustrated by a number of examples.

Controversies concerning the siting of facilities for the disposal and treatment of hazardous but also domestic waste are widespread in all of the industrialized countries. The paradoxical situation of projects that are needed for environmental reasons and are opposed on environmental grounds has been addressed by scholars and by policy-makers searching for solutions. However, only in a few cases have waste disposal facilities actually been built and made operational. The aim of the book (which illustrates the results of a research project financed by the EU-DGXII) is to investigate the decision-making processes for the siting and creation of waste facilities, in order to identify the factors for predicting success. Adopting a public policy analysis approach the book presents six cases of successful decision-making on waste facilities siting in France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Slovenia, drawing lessons for the redefinition of public policy-making in the field of waste treatment.

The proper planning, design and management of land use demands a careful balancing of many goals, and the search for desirable land uses, coupled with effective and sustainable management practices, is made more complex by the interactions between the environment, the economy and society. One of the main reasons underlying the growing interest in multicriteria analysis for land use management is the need for an integrated approach to such complex problems. Multicriteria analysis can support the structuring of land use problems, allowing the concerns of major actors to be explored, giving trade-offs between conflicting goals, and leading to the evaluation of options from different perspectives. The integration of spatial concepts into multicriteria schemes means that this type of methodology can now make a substantial contribution to land-use management. The 19 contributions to this text illustrate the state-of-the-art in the field, highlighting current theoretical, methodological and practical issues. The book should be of use to a broad readership of scientists, land-use managers and decision makers.

Nicolas Buclet and Olivier Godard In terms of economic scale, waste management is one of the two most important environmentally oriented sectors. 1 It stands at the cross-roads in the material organization of society, resource management, changing lifestyles and consumption patterns, and ecological issues. For many years waste management has been perceived as aresources and health issue, confined mainly to dense urban areas, and not an environmental issue. In contemporary affiuent societies, however, the scale reached by waste flows, the inheritance of accumulated deposits in soils from the waste of previous generations and increasing levels of public concern about environmental proteetion and quality of life have all conspired to impose a fresh look at what waste really implies for a modern society. We are obliged to focus our attention on such questions as how the circulation of matter is at present organized by society and can be modified and controlled if economic development is to become more environmentally sustainable. This is the period we live in. Significant changes in waste management in European countries have been introduced during the last decade or so. To some extent the transition between traditional regimes mainly based on local disposal and new regimes based on a revised organisation of flows of waste matter is still in the making, involving new attitudes, new activities, new technologies and new incentives, reducing the pressure on virgin natural resources and eliminating the huge dissipation of various pollutants into the environment.

This Waste management is not only a technical problem, but is also an issue which involves various actors throughout society. In this book, the organisation of waste management is seen in terms of regimes, with each contribution working to conventional principles. They are the real guides for actors within each national regime. The advantage of working with the concept of conventional principles is the simplicity of this tool when comparing national regimes, bearing in mind that the crucial question of European harmonisation arises. The main aim of the book is to specify the role which should be accorded to harmonisation and subsidiarity within municipal waste management. It analyses the issues which arise in building a European waste management policy, highlighting the several areas of conflict between the actors, be they Member States, companies, or local authorities. Its results may therefore be generalised to other European political fields.

This volume is based on a number of reports prepared over several years for a research project jointly sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau and the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council. Since release of the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, the quest has intensified for methods that combine economic analysis and environmental assessments to achieve the goals of sustainable development. The main purpose of this volume is to explain how this may be accomplished. It combines scientific assessments, economic analysis and governmental procedures in an integrated approach to planning for economic development and environmental protection. The first four chapters explain economic concepts and techniques and their incorporation in EIA procedure. Six carefully selected case studies are presented, demonstrating practical applications in six different countries -- Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, the Philippines, Hawaii and Australia.The volume will assist all participants involved in environmental impact assessment: public and private development proponents, environmental and conservation groups, public administrators and decision makers, and interested members of the public. The book is unique in that it combines economics, EIA techniques, procedures, and institutional aspects.

Environmental decisions must satisfy a multitude of objectives and the matching of a plan, policy or project to such objectives is a matter of both facts and value judgements. Value Functions for Environmental Management provides a systematic approach to the structuring and measurement of value judgements, showing how they drive the decision process and how to make them transparent and effective in support of complex decisions. The value functions that the book describes provide a scheme for the exploration of human values and a tool for transforming them into an analytical model. A clear statement can then be made of the degree to which a decision has achieved its objectives, and how conflicting objectives may be addressed. This does not mean that there is no role for human judgement in the process. Complexity, often coupled with large information gaps, necessitates expert judgement, but the values adopted by the experts are themselves capable of being structured and measured according to the value function methodology presented here, even if the judgements themselves are qualitative and tentative. Value models for expert panels are also presented.The use of the methodology in practice is illustrated by examples. The book contains an extensive subject index.

Controversies concerning the siting of facilities for the disposal and treatment of hazardous but also domestic waste are widespread in all of the industrialized countries. The paradoxical situation of projects that are needed for environmental reasons and are opposed on environmental grounds has been addressed by scholars and by policy-makers searching for solutions. However, only in a few cases have waste disposal facilities actually been built and made operational. The aim of the book (which illustrates the results of a research project financed by the EU-DGXII) is to investigate the decision-making processes for the siting and creation of waste facilities, in order to identify the factors for predicting success. Adopting a Public Policy Analysis approach the book presents six cases of successful decision-making on waste facilities siting in France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Slovenia, drawing lessons for the redefinition of public policy-making in the field of waste treatment. The conclusions of this book are interesting for all fields of public policy where conflict is a relevant problem. This book is also of interest to scholars in the environmental field, as well as in public policy analysis, and to practitioners and (public or private) actors involved in environmental policy.

The proper planning, design and management of land use demands a careful balancing of many goals, and the search for desirable land uses, coupled with effective and sustainable management practices, is made more complex by the interactions between the environment, the economy and society. One of the main reasons underlying the growing interest in multicriteria analysis for land use management is the need for an integrated approach to such complex problems. Multicriteria analysis can support the structuring of land use problems, allowing the concerns of major actors to be explored, giving trade-offs between conflicting goals, and leading to the evaluation of options from different perspectives. The integration of spatial concepts into multicriteria schemes means that this type of methodology can now make a substantial contribution to land-use management. The 19 contributions to Multicriteria Analysis for Land-Use Management illustrate the state of the art in the field, highlighting current theoretical, methodological and practical issues. Recommended for a broad readership of scientists, land-use managers and decision makers.

When confronted with broadly similar problems, countries having similar economic organisation and general cultural backgrounds have chosen rather different waste management regimes. These differences extend to the institutional framework selected, the technology used, and the processes through which the regimes have been developed. How can one make sense of these differences? Beyond standard economic assumptions that choice can be explained solely in terms of the selection of the best cost-benefit ratios, the study of waste management reveals that social choice depends on the way that political processes and institutional mechanisms combine the heterogeneous rationales that co-exist in western societies. Describing change in terms of regimes, institutional parameters and policies raises the question of how change is introduced. In Europe, this also includes the context of the European single market. Should there be free mobility of waste within the EU? The five case studies presented here reveal a panorama of national regimes contemplating different development options within their own institutional trajectories.Differences, however, can be reduced to the interplay of only a few variables, as is done in the concluding chapter.

Waste management is not only a technical problem, but is also an issue which involves various actors throughout society. In this book, the organisation of waste management is seen in terms of regimes. This should interest people involved in public choices, as well as researchers, mainly economists but also others, dealing with institutional questions. We have insisted on conventional principles. They are the real guides for actors within each national regime. The advantage of working with the concept of conventional principles is the simplicity of this tool when comparing national regimes, bearing in mind that the crucial question of European harmonisation arises. The main aim of the book is to specify the role which should be accorded to harmonisation and subsidiarity within municipal waste management. It analyses the issues which arise in building a European waste management policy, highlighting the several areas of conflict between the actors, be they Member States, companies, or local authorities. Its results may therefore be generalised to other European political fields.

DEFINITE is a decision support software package that improves the quality of environmental decision making since it:-structures the decision process; -makes full use of available information; -provides a rational, responsible and justifiable decision that is open for external review; and allows the exploration of all the options by the use of `what if?' scenarios. DEFINITE is, in fact, a whole toolkit of methods that can be used on a wide variety of problems. If there is a problem to be solved and alternative solutions can be identified, then DEFINITE can weigh up the alternatives and assess the most reasonable option. The system contains a number of methods for supporting problem definition as well as graphical and other methods to support representation. In the assessment of the problem, DEFINITE can support priority allocation in a number of ways. DEFINITE can deal with all types of alternatives, thanks to the inclusion of five different multicriteria methods, as well as cost–benefit and cost–effectiveness analysis. Related procedures such as weight assessment, standardization, discounting, and a wide variety of methods for sensitivity analysis are also available. DEFINITE – allowing for fifty alternatives and fifty effects – supports the whole decision process, from problem definition to report generation. The structured approach adopted ensures that the decisions arrived at are systematic and consistent. The full version of DEFINITE comprises: -The book Multiobjective Decision Support for Environmental Management; -The DEFINITE User Manual; -The DEFINITE software package; and -A helpdesk for user support.

Multiple criteria decision making is a major and rapidly growing field of research. Methods resulting from this field of research are used in this book to develop a Multiobjective Decision Support Systems (MODSS) for environmental management. The primary focus of the book is therefore on the issues and practicalities that arise when these methods are applied to support decisions on environmental problems. Most methods included in this book are derived from the literature on multicriteria decision making, decision anlysis and operations research. Concepts developed in management science are used to describe environmental decision processes and to define the functions of decision support. The author's work on MODSS has resulted in the development of a decision support package, called DEFINITE (DEcisions on a FINITE set of alternatives). A demonstration version of this programme is included with the book. This Demo Disk can be run on a MS-DOS compatible personal computer (version 2.0 or higher) having a 3,5 inch, 720 Kb disk drive and 640 Kb available RAM.

In 1989 the Dutch government published a National Environmental Policy Plan (Dutch abbreviation NMP). This NMP is based on the book Concern for Tomorrow. a national environmental survey by RIVM (the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection). A major conclusion of the RIVM study was that emissions of many pollutants had to be cut by 70 - 90 % in order to reach environmental quality goals. The government accepted the RIVM analysis and consequently ClUTent Dutch environmental policy aims at large reduction of pollutants. Another conclusion of the RIVM study was that such high reduction goals would not be easy to achieve by technological means alone, and that thus structural changes would be required. These changes could eventually lead to sustainable development, which now forms the major focus of Dutch government national environmental policy. This being so, the Dutch government requested that RIVM in subsequent issues of Concern for Tomorrow should investigate the options for sustainable development.