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The value of information is a central concept in decision analysis, used to quantify how much the expected outcome of a decision would be improved if epistemic uncertainty could be resolved prior to committing to a course of action. One of the challenges, however, in quantitative analysis of the value of information is that the calculations are demanding, especially in requiring predictions of outcomes as a function of alternative actions and sources of uncertainty. However, the concept of value of information is important in early framing of some decisions, before such predictions are available. We propose a novel measure of the value of information based on constructed scales (CVOI), grounded in the algebra of the expected value of perfect information (EVPI), but requiring less of experts and analysts. The CVOI calculation decomposes EVPI into a contribution representing the relevance of the uncertainty to the decision and a contribution representing the magnitude of uncertainty; constructed ratio scales are then proposed for each contribution. We demonstrate the use of CVOI to identify research priorities related to migratory bird management in the face of climate change. Funding: This work was funded in part by the U.S. Geological Survey National Climate Adaptation Science Center.

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.