Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to Support the Remediation of Polluted Soils: A Review of Case Studies

Floris Abrams (), Lucas Hendrickx, Catrinel Turcanu, Lieve Sweeck and Jos Van Orshoven
Additional contact information
Floris Abrams: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape, KU Leuven (University of Leuven), Celestijnenlaan 200E, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
Lucas Hendrickx: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape, KU Leuven (University of Leuven), Celestijnenlaan 200E, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
Catrinel Turcanu: Belgian Nuclear Research Centre—SCK CEN, Impact & Site Remediation, 2400 Mol, Belgium
Lieve Sweeck: Belgian Nuclear Research Centre—SCK CEN, Impact & Site Remediation, 2400 Mol, Belgium
Jos Van Orshoven: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape, KU Leuven (University of Leuven), Celestijnenlaan 200E, 3001 Leuven, Belgium

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: For the successful remediation of polluted sites, priority setting among the possible remediation technologies is of major importance. The related decisions are typically conditioned by a limited set of alternative remediation techniques and multiple, often contradicting criteria. These characteristics make the decision problem suitable for applying a formalised discrete multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). This paper reports on the outcome of a systematic review of articles published between 1995 and 2020 encompassing 43 MCDA applications to support the selection of the remediation technique for polluted soils. It focuses on the comparison between implementations of the MCDA methodology. The review identifies four gaps where progress can be made to mobilise the full strength of the MCDA methodology to support the remediation of polluted soils: (i) early stakeholder engagement, (ii) inclusion of social criteria, (iii) an informed choice of the weighting and aggregation method, (iv) and sensitivity analysis.

Keywords: multi-criteria decision analysis; MCDA; remediation; soil pollution; decision support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/6/887/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/6/887/ (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:13:y:2024:i:6:p:887-:d:1417635

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 ().