Qualitative multicriteria evaluation for environmental management

One of the main differences among evaluation models is between monetary and non-monetary evaluation. Cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis are well-known examples of a monetary evaluation. In the past decades the degraded state of the natural environment has become a key issue, and it is increasingly taken for granted that environmental and resource problems generally have far-reaching economic and ecological consequences. Economic-environmental evaluation and decision problems are conflictual in nature and, therefore, multicriteria techniques seem to be an appropriate modelling tool. This paper attempts to analyse in a critical way some essential aspects of multicriteria decision methods. In particular, the paper deals with uncertainty and measurement problems in environmental policy analysis, seen from the viewpoint of the measurement level of information (including fuzzy set methods). Particular emphasis will be placed on methods for concerted planning