A Participatory and Spatial Multicriteria Decision Approach to Prioritize the Allocation of Ecosystem Services to Management Units

Marlene Marques, Keith M. Reynolds, Susete Marques, Marco Marto, Steve Paplanus and José G. Borges
Additional contact information
Marlene Marques: Forest Research Center and Laboratory Terra, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal
Keith M. Reynolds: Corvallis Forestry Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest Research Station, US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 3200 SW Jefferson Way, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
Susete Marques: Forest Research Center and Laboratory Terra, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal
Marco Marto: Forest Research Center and Laboratory Terra, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal
Steve Paplanus: Mountain View Business Group, 428 Flying Orchid Dr, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
José G. Borges: Forest Research Center and Laboratory Terra, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-22

Abstract: Forest management planning can be challenging when allocating multiple ecosystem services (ESs) to management units (MUs), given the potentially conflicting management priorities of actors. We developed a methodology to spatially allocate ESs to MUs, according to the objectives of four interest groups—civil society, forest owners, market agents, and public administration. We applied a Group Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System approach, combining (a) Multicriteria Decision Analysis to weight the decision models; (b) a focus group and a multicriteria Pareto frontier method to negotiate a consensual solution for seven ESs; and (c) the Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system to prioritize the allocation of ESs to MUs. We report findings from an application to a joint collaborative management area (ZIF of Vale do Sousa) in northwestern Portugal. The forest owners selected wood production as the first ES allocation priority, with lower priorities for other ESs. In opposition, the civil society assigned the highest allocation priorities to biodiversity, cork, and carbon stock, with the lowest priority being assigned to wood production. The civil society had the highest mean rank of allocation priority scores. We found significant differences in priority scores between the civil society and the other three groups, highlighting the civil society and market agents as the most discordant groups. We spatially evaluated potential for conflicts among group ESs allocation priorities. The findings suggest that this approach can be helpful to decision makers, increasing the effectiveness of forest management plan implementation.

Keywords: forest management planning; MCDA; multicriteria Pareto frontier methods; focus group; EMDS; GIS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/7/747/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/7/747/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:7:p:747-:d:595979

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().