Participatory multicriteria decision analysis with Web-HIPRE

Environmental decision making typically concerns several stakeholders with conflicting views. Multicriteria decision analysis provides transparent ways to elicit and communicate individual preferences. When the stakeholders clearly understand each other’s views, a consensus can be reached more easily. Computer software provide a substantial enhancement to support participatory decision making processes, for example, in the preference elicitation and in the analysis of the results. In this paper, we describe the use of the first Web-based multicriteria decision support software called Web-HIPRE in environmental modelling. The World Wide Web provides new possibilities to support the process, for example, by allowing distributed decision Manuscript (October 10, 2002) 2 support. Especially in environmental problems the stakeholders can be located in different geographical areas. We illustrate the use of Web-HIPRE in the case dealing with the evaluation of regulation policies for the Lake Päijänne in Finland.