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AbstractQuantitative risk analysis is being extensively employed to support policymakers and provides a strong conceptual framework for evaluating decision alternatives under uncertainty. Many problems involving environmental risks are, however, of a spatial nature, i.e., containing spatial impacts, spatial vulnerabilities, and spatial risk‐mitigation alternatives. Recent developments in multicriteria spatial analysis have enabled the assessment and aggregation of multiple impacts, supporting policymakers in spatial evaluation problems. However, recent attempts to conduct spatial multicriteria risk analysis have generally been weakly conceptualized, without adequate roots in quantitative risk analysis. Moreover, assessments of spatial risk often neglect the multidimensional nature of spatial impacts (e.g., social, economic, human) that are typically occurring in such decision problems. The aim of this article is therefore to suggest a conceptual quantitative framework for environmental multicriteria spatial risk analysis based on expected multi‐attribute utility theory. The framework proposes: (i) the formal assessment of multiple spatial impacts; (ii) the aggregation of these multiple spatial impacts; (iii) the assessment of spatial vulnerabilities and probabilities of occurrence of adverse events; (iv) the computation of spatial risks; (v) the assessment of spatial risk mitigation alternatives; and (vi) the design and comparison of spatial risk mitigation alternatives (e.g., reductions of vulnerabilities and/or impacts). We illustrate the use of the framework in practice with a case study based on a flood‐prone area in northern Italy.

AbstractStarting from the topicality of the issues related to the location of undesirable facilities and on the basis of a brief review of the types of models that are currently being used in the Municipal Solid Waste Management context, the present paper proposes a multicriteria approach that is able to support decision makers in the choice of the best location for a waste incinerator plant in the Province of Torino (Italy). Three alternative sites have been compared through the use of the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method. The application allows the dependence relationships among the aspects and criteria to be assessed and the relative importance of all the elements that play an influence on the final choice to be elicitated.The decision‐making process was developed through the identification of 31 environmental and socio‐economic indicators that were grouped into clusters and organized in four subnetworks according to the Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks (BOCR) model in order to compare the three alternatives by means of a holistic approach and to better highlight the tradeoffs between the aspects involved in the decision.The aim of this work is to analyse the contribution that the ANP technique offers in sustainability assessment of undesirable facilities, paying particular attention to the use of quantitative indicators in the evaluation process.The strengths and weaknesses of the ANP approach, combined with the use of measurable and verifiable indicators, are also discussed and three different sensitivity analyses have been performed in order to test the robustness of the proposed model and the stability of the results, exploring also rank reversal thresholds.The main findings of the present work have proved that the use of quantitative indicators as nodes of the ANP–BOCR structure significantly improves the internal coherence of the model and makes the decision process more traceable and reliable. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

International audience ; The design of alternatives is an essential part of decision making that has been less studied in theory and practice compared to alternatives' evaluation. This topic is particularly relevant in the context of public policy making, where policy design represents a crucial step of the policy cycle since it determines the quality of the alternative policies being considered. This paper attempts to formalise the decision aiding process in two real interventions dealing with alternatives' generation for territorial policy making in Italy. The aim of this research is to understand what generates novelty within the alternatives' design phase of a decision aiding process, i.e. what allows to expand the solution space and discover new alternatives to solve the problem under consideration. It demonstrates ways in which novelty in decision processes can be supported by Operational Research/Multicriteria Decision Aiding tools. The two case studies are used to answer the following questions: (i) Why have new alternatives arose during the policy making process? (ii) How have they been generated? (iii) Which consequences did they lead to? and (iv) What generated novelty in the process? The results highlight two main reasons that can expand the solution space within a decision aiding process: (i) dissatisfaction (of the client, of the analyst or of the relevant stakeholders, especially when dealing with public policies) with respect to the solutions currently proposed to the decision making problem and (ii) opportunity for a change in one of the variables/constraints.

International audience ; The design of alternatives is an essential part of decision making that has been less studied in theory and practice compared to alternatives' evaluation. This topic is particularly relevant in the context of public policy making, where policy design represents a crucial step of the policy cycle since it determines the quality of the alternative policies being considered. This paper attempts to formalise the decision aiding process in two real interventions dealing with alternatives' generation for territorial policy making in Italy. The aim of this research is to understand what generates novelty within the alternatives' design phase of a decision aiding process, i.e. what allows to expand the solution space and discover new alternatives to solve the problem under consideration. It demonstrates ways in which novelty in decision processes can be supported by Operational Research/Multicriteria Decision Aiding tools. The two case studies are used to answer the following questions: (i) Why have new alternatives arose during the policy making process? (ii) How have they been generated? (iii) Which consequences did they lead to? and (iv) What generated novelty in the process? The results highlight two main reasons that can expand the solution space within a decision aiding process: (i) dissatisfaction (of the client, of the analyst or of the relevant stakeholders, especially when dealing with public policies) with respect to the solutions currently proposed to the decision making problem and (ii) opportunity for a change in one of the variables/constraints.

This paper presents the early results of a study aimed at experimenting an innovative approach to the design and the evaluation of complex urban transformation processes, based on the combined use of different design strategies and tools. The purpose of the paper is to illustrate, by means of a case study, a multi-level decision aiding process, able to support strategic urban design, with specific reference to regeneration processes for abandoned industrial sites in urban areas. The case study presented in the paper concerns different alternative proposals for the requalification of the former Shougang/Er-Tong mechanical factory in Beijing, China. The choice of a Chinese case study as a field test for an experimentation about mixed methods research approaches in the domain of urban transformation is related to the peculiar emerging conditions of that context, in which huge economic potentials are speeding up the transformation but a substantial lack of cultural and methodological instruments to manage a so fast modification exists. During the design process, three methods in particular have been combined according to a multi-phase design: (i) Stakeholders Analysis, (ii) Multicriteria Analysis, and (iii) Discounted Cash Flow Analysis. Each one of them has been applied in parallel to the evolution of the different design scenarios. The results of the performed study show that mixed methods approaches are a promising line of research in the field of environmental evaluation and urban design. Insights and guidelines for the replication of the proposed methodological approach in other territorial contexts are also proposed.

ABSTRACTMultiple criteria decision analysis is a valuable and increasingly widely‐used tool to support decision‐making processes where there is a choice to be made between different options. This approach is particularly useful in the context of sustainability assessment where a complex and interconnected range of environmental, social and economic issues must be taken into consideration and where objectives are often competing.It has been generally agreed that when dealing with sustainability issues, neither an economic reductionism nor an ecological one is possible. Because in general, economic sustainability has an ecological cost, and because ecological sustainability has an economic cost, an integrative framework such as multicriteria evaluation is needed for tackling sustainability issues properly. In this sense, the analysis of the possible interactions among the elements is of particular importance for assessing the sustainability of a certain transformation.Within this context, a very important role is played by the 'non‐additive measurement theory', that makes use of the Choquet integral. This last represents the generalization of the weighted average method and provides a computational structure for aggregating information, taking into account interactivity between criteria.The present paper proposes a multicriteria approach that is able to support decision makers in the choice of the best solution for the reuse of an abandoned open‐pit quarry. Five alternative options have been compared based on different indicators that have been aggregated using the Choquet integral in order to obtain the global sustainability level of each solution and to better highlight the trade‐offs between the aspects involved in the decision. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Territorial transformations can be regarded as a multifaceted concept which includes socio-economic, ecological, technical, political and ethical perspectives. Decision problems in the domain of territorial transformations represent "weak" or unstructured problems since they are characterized by multiple actors, many and often conflicting values and views, a wealth of possible outcomes and high uncertainty. This paper addresses decision problems in the context of urban and territorial planning projects using the Multi Attribute Value Theory (MAVT), a particular kind of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis method and it provides an application on a real case located in the city of Torino (Italy).

The re-use of historical buildings can be seen as a complex decision problem because of the presence of different objectives to be pursued, the public/private nature of the goods under investigation, the existence of several values (historical, artistic, cultural, economic, etc.), the presence of different actors (public government representatives, architects, architectural historians, developers and owners). In decision problems related to the re-use of historical assets conflicts can arise and the availability of analytical frameworks able to support the process is getting more and more important. It has been generally agreed that Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) can offer a formal methodology to deal with such decision problems, taking into account the available technical information and stakeholders values. This paper considers the problem of sustainability assessment in cultural heritage projects using the Multi Attribute Value Theory (MAVT) approach which is a particular kind of MCDA technique. Starting from a real case concerning the re-use of historical buildings in the metropolitan area of Torino (Italy), the paper aims at exploring the contribution of MAVT for decision problems in the field of cultural heritage.