Decision Analysis to Advance Environmental Sustainability

Kelly F. Robinson (), Erin Baker (), Elizabeth Ewing (), Victoria Hemming (), Melissa A. Kenney () and Michael C. Runge ()
Additional contact information
Kelly F. Robinson: U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602
Erin Baker: The Energy Transition Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003
Elizabeth Ewing: Ewing Smith Consulting LLC, Washington, District of Columbia 20007
Victoria Hemming: Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada
Melissa A. Kenney: Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108
Michael C. Runge: U.S. Geological Survey, Eastern Ecological Science Center at the Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, Maryland 20708

Decision Analysis, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 243-251

Abstract: Decision analysis provides a robust framework for complex decisions related to environmental sustainability and conservation, including for energy and water, fisheries and wildlife management, agriculture, and climate change response. The complexities of these problems stem from their large scope and scale, which leads to multiple decision makers, stakeholders, rightsholders, and other entities with potentially competing objectives. These problems often are time limited (e.g., urgent action is required to prevent species’ extinction), involve management interventions over long time scales and delayed responses to management (deep uncertainty), and are impeded by limited resources (funding, capacity, etc.). In this Special Issue on “Decision Analysis to Advance Environmental Sustainability,” we present five case studies of applications of decision analysis to complex problems in environmental sustainability and conservation. These case studies incorporate multiple objectives related to ecological and environmental sustainability, economic and social concerns, and logistics of implementation. They showcase a wide range of tools and applications to these problems. We also provide suggestions for new avenues of research and application of decision analysis to problems of environmental sustainability and conservation, including how to incorporate other decision-making tools into decision analysis processes, how to broaden the reach of decision analysis to other sustainability problems, how to incorporate more stakeholders and rightsholders into the decision process, the potential to incorporate new technology into these processes, identifying more creative alternatives, how to secure more funding, ways to move from decision to action, and how to move beyond status quo to make big transitions necessary to achieve sustainability.

Keywords: structured decision making; conservation; sustainable development goals; uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/deca.2023.intro.v20.n4 (application/pdf)

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:inm:ordeca:v:20:y:2023:i:4:p:243-251

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Decision Analysis from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().