Multi-Criteria Analysis Flashcards

1
Q

What is the value of a multi criteria analysis?

A
  • It helps to evaluate alternatives: solutions, scenarios, land use options, products etc.
  • MCA works with criteria with different dimensions, so you do not have to convert indicators ( e.g. into monetary values), and you can consider criteria that are difficult to measure ( e.g. social or religious aspects)
  • MCA is a tool that can help evaluate the relative importance of all criteria involved and reflect their importance in the final decision making process.
  • Helps to reach consensus in a multi-disciplinary team or group of stakeholders
    • Team members don’t have to agree on the relative importance of the criteria or the rankings of the alternatives, each member enters his/her own judgements and makes a distinct, identifiable contribution to a jointly reached conclusion.
  • Helps to make the decision making process transparent
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2
Q

What is MCA?

A

Multi-Criteria Analysis is a decision making tool, developed for a complex multi-criteria problems that include quantitative and/or qualitative aspects of the problem in the decision making process.

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3
Q

What is the purpose of MCA in ESA?

A
  • ESA involves the study of complex environmental problems by identifying and analysing causes, mechanisms, processes, impacts, and potential solutions.
  • MCA is used to compare and rank alternatives taking into account and evaluating their respective consequences.
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4
Q

What are the characteristics of MCA?

A
  • Criteria have different dimensions, e.g. costs, deposition levels, area of damaged ecosystems
  • Criteria may differ in weight, e.g. acidification may be considered a bigger problem than eutrophication
  • Weights depend on ‘vision’, e.g. various people have various preferences
  • Qualitative and quantitative information, e.g. opinions about environment versus quantitative emissions loads
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5
Q

Describe a generic procedure for MCA?

A
  1. Establish the decision context:
    • Identify the overall goal of decision making
    • Identify (sub)objectives
      • What would distinguish between a good solution and a bad one?
    • Convert objectives to measurable (sub)criteria
      • Once you have set a criteria try to group them ( e.g. costs, effect on the environment, socio-economic consequences, side-effects on the issues)
      • Assess the criteria on:
        • completeness
        • redundancy
        • operationally
        • mutual independence of preference
        • double counting
        • size
        • impacts over time
  2. Identify alternative options
  3. ‘Score’ options performance against criteria
    • Assess the expected performance ( consequences) of each solution against each criterion. Result is -performance matrix. This can be done:
      • Quantitatively, e.g. in monetary terms, number of accidents, increase of CO2 emission, etc.
      • Qualitatively, e.g. in words ‘no significant impact’
    • To keep in mind:
      • Take care that the scores are comparable
      • Use the same sense of direction: usually better performance means a higher score
      • Use e.g. interval scales (0-100) or based on Likert scale 1-5
  4. ‘Weight’ criteria
    • Assign a weight ( value) to each of the criteria to reflect their relative importance
    • reflects the subjective opinion of a group of experts, stakeholders or actors
  5. Combine the weights and scores for each option to derive an overall value
    • Si = w1si1 + w2si2 + ….+ wnsin = sum(n; j =1) wjsij
  6. Examine the results: evaluate & rank options
  7. Sensitivity analysis
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6
Q

What are the different methods to assign weights?

A
  • Ranking: assigning each criterion a rank that reflects its perceived degree of importance relative to the decision being made. This criteria can then be ranked ( first, second, etc.)
  • Rating: similar to ranking, but criteria are assigned “percentage scores” between 0 and 100, while the total scores for all criteria must add up to 100
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7
Q

What are the two types of ranking?

A
  • Ordinal ranking: each expert is asked to put the list of criteria in order of importance
  • Regular ranking: assigns each criterion a rank depending on its perceived importance
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8
Q

What are the advantages of rating?

A

It provides both ordinal ( order of importance) and cardinal ( difference in magnitude between two criteria) measure of importance

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