Putting the economics in its place: decision-making in an uncertain environment

摘要: This paper describes a decision-making process for meeting the water supply-demand balance in urban centres. is complex sustainability iss ue, with strong elements of risk and uncertainty, resource ecological limits, economic constraint s, potential conflict an overarching need community to be engaged process. A worked example used illustrate process, which em ploys several different component methods, each has been applied before, but not c ombination. likely have relevance wide variety other applications, particular those relating infrastructure. Integrated planning analysi s supply- demand-side options long-term supply demand systems. These can all costed on basis their relative capital o perating costs contribution reducing deficit within horiz on. An essential prior step scoping boundedness system. In case f major focus consideration environmental flows impa ct availability. Greenhouse gas emissions are also important externality wate r systems, attributing cost these appropriate response. The needs consider range issues do lend themse lves easy quantification, this categorised under headings: environ ment; social; feasibility. To accomplish this, was developed that us ed modified multi-criteria deliberative space. unique characteris tics were fact it did attempt mix relatively easily quantified eco nomic criteria other, less readily criteria. qualitative weighted, scored ranked by stakeholders results fil ter or ‘screen’ from portfolio, thus deriving impact decisions include d exclude options, based decision