Download or read book Environmental Decision Making in Context written by Chad J. McGuire and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2012-04-25 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because of the complexity involved in understanding the environment, the choices made about environmental issues are often incomplete. In a perfect world, those who make environmental decisions would be armed with a foundation about the broad range of issues at stake when making such decisions. Offering a simple but comprehensive understanding of the critical roles science, economics, and values play in making informed environmental decisions, Environmental Decision-Making in Context: A Toolbox provides that foundation. The author highlights a primary set of intellectual tools from different disciplines and places them into an environmental context through the use of case study examples. The case studies are designed to stimulate the analytical reasoning required to employ environmental decision-making and ultimately, help in establishing a framework for pursuing and solving environmental questions, issues, and problems. They create a framework individuals from various backgrounds can use to both identify and analyze environmental issues in the context of everyday environmental problems. The book strikes a balance between being a tightly bound academic text and a loosely defined set of principles. It takes you beyond the traditional pillars of academic discipline to supply an understanding of the fundamental aspects of what is actually involved in making environmental decisions and building a set of skills for making those decisions.

Download or read book Making Better Environmental Decisions written by Mary O'Brien and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work recommends a simple yet profound shift to another decision-making technique: alternatives assessment. Instead of asking how much of a hazardous activity is safe, alternatives assessment asks how we can avoid or minimize damage.

Download or read book Structured Decision Making written by Robin Gregory and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-03-19 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book outlines the creative process of making environmental management decisions using the approach called Structured Decision Making. It is a short introductory guide to this popular form of decision making and is aimed at environmental managers and scientists. This is a distinctly pragmatic label given to ways for helping individuals and groups think through tough multidimensional choices characterized by uncertain science, diverse stakeholders, and difficult tradeoffs. This is the everyday reality of environmental management, yet many important decisions currently are made on an ad hoc basis that lacks a solid value-based foundation, ignores key information, and results in selection of an inferior alternative. Making progress – in a way that is rigorous, inclusive, defensible and transparent – requires combining analytical methods drawn from the decision sciences and applied ecology with deliberative insights from cognitive psychology, facilitation and negotiation. The authors review key methods and discuss case-study examples based in their experiences in communities, boardrooms, and stakeholder meetings. The goal of this book is to lay out a compelling guide that will change how you think about making environmental decisions. Visit www.wiley.com/go/gregory/ to access the figures and tables from the book.

Download or read book Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-05-20 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of several federal agencies responsible for protecting Americans against significant risks to human health and the environment. As part of that mission, EPA estimates the nature, magnitude, and likelihood of risks to human health and the environment; identifies the potential regulatory actions that will mitigate those risks and protect public health1 and the environment; and uses that information to decide on appropriate regulatory action. Uncertainties, both qualitative and quantitative, in the data and analyses on which these decisions are based enter into the process at each step. As a result, the informed identification and use of the uncertainties inherent in the process is an essential feature of environmental decision making. EPA requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convene a committee to provide guidance to its decision makers and their partners in states and localities on approaches to managing risk in different contexts when uncertainty is present. It also sought guidance on how information on uncertainty should be presented to help risk managers make sound decisions and to increase transparency in its communications with the public about those decisions. Given that its charge is not limited to human health risk assessment and includes broad questions about managing risks and decision making, in this report the committee examines the analysis of uncertainty in those other areas in addition to human health risks. Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty explains the statement of task and summarizes the findings of the committee.

Download or read book Tools to Aid Environmental Decision Making written by Virginia H. Dale and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-11-26 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is unique in identifying and presenting tools to environmental decision-makers to help them improve the quality and clarity of their work. These tools range from software to policy approaches, and from environmental databases to focus groups. Equally of value to environmental managers, and students in environmental risk, policy, economics and law.

Download or read book GIS for Environmental Decision Making written by Andrew A. Lovett and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2007-11-19 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental applications have long been a core use of GIS. However, the effectiveness of GIS-based methods depends on the decision-making frameworks and contexts within which they are employed. GIS for Environmental Decision-Making takes an interdisciplinary look at the capacities of GIS to integrate, analyze, and display data on which decisions

Download or read book Forecasts And Environmental Decision Making written by Paul J. Culhane and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book evaluates the predictive accuracy of the forecasts in a sample of federal environmental impact statements. It examines a major federal attempt to impose rationalistic reforms on government decision makers and the first view of National Environmental Policy Act reforms.

Download or read book The Analytic Hierarchy Process in Natural Resource and Environmental Decision Making written by Daniel L. Schmoldt and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2001-06-30 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decision making in land management involves preferential selection among competing alternatives. Often, such choices are difficult owing to the complexity of the decision context. Because the analytic hierarchy process (AHP, developed by Thomas Saaty in the 1970s) has been successfully applied to many complex planning, resource allocation, and priority setting problems in business, energy, health, marketing, natural resources, and transportation, more applications of the AHP in natural resources and environmental sciences are appearing regularly. This realization has prompted the authors to collect some of the important works in this area and present them as a single volume for managers and scholars. Because land management contains a somewhat unique set of features not found in other AHP application areas, such as site-specific decisions, group participation and collaboration, and incomplete scientific knowledge, this text fills a void in the literature on management science and decision analysis for forest resources.

Download or read book Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions written by Frans H. J. M. Coenen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-12-12 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions is about a specific ‘promise’ that participation holds for environmental decision-making. Many of the arguments for public participation in (inter)national environmental policy documents are functional, that is to say they see public participation as a means to an end. Sound solutions to environmental problems require participation beyond experts and political elites. Neglecting information from the public leads to legitimacy questions and potential conflicts. There is a discourse in the literature and in policy practice as to whether decision-making improves in quality as additional relevant information by the public is considered. The promise that public participation holds has to be weighed against the limitations of public participation in terms of costs and interest conflicts. The question that Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions seeks to answer for academics, planners and civil servants in all environmental relevant policy fields is: What restricts and what enables information to hold the ‘promise’ that public participation lead to better environmental decision-making and better outcomes?

Download or read book Multicriteria Analysis for Environmental Decision Making written by Davide Geneletti and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Multicriteria analysis, or MCA, has been increasingly used in environmental decision-making to support the identification of suitable courses of action by integrating factual information with value-based information collected through stakeholder engagement. Multicriteria Analysis for Environmental Decision-Making provides an introduction to the key concepts of MCA and includes a series of case studies that illustrate the application of MCA to a variety of environmental decision-making problems ranging from protected area zoning to landfill siting, and from forest restoration to environmental impact assessment of tourism infrastructures. A compact reference that can be used by researchers, practitioners and planners/decision makers, Multicriteria Analysis for Environmental Decision-Making can also serve as a textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a broad range of curricula.

Download or read book Sustainable Values Sustainable Change written by Bryan G. Norton and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-12-16 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Systematically investigates the philosophical foundations of sustainable development in the context of the history of environmental policy. . . . Compelling.” —Choice Sustainability is a nearly ubiquitous concept today, but can we ever imagine what it would be like for humans to live sustainably on earth? One of the most trafficked terms in the press, on university campuses, and in the corridors of government, sustainability has risen to prominence as a buzzword before the many parties laying claim to it have agreed on how to define it. But the term’s political currency urgently demands that we develop an understanding of this elusive concept. While economists, philosophers, and ecologists argue about what in nature is valuable, and why, in Sustainable Values, Sustainable Change, Bryan Norton offers an action-oriented, pragmatic response to the disconnect between public and academic discourse around sustainability. Looking to the arenas in which decisions are made—and the problems driving these decisions—Norton reveals that the path to sustainability cannot be guided by fixed objectives; sustainability will instead be achieved through experimentation, incremental learning, and adaptive management. Drawing inspiration from Aldo Leopold’s famed metaphor of “thinking like a mountain” for a spatially explicit, pluralistic approach to evaluating environmental change, Norton outlines a new decision-making process guided by deliberation and negotiation across science and philosophy. Looking across scales to today’s global problems, Norton urges us to learn to think like a planet. “An excellent distillation of Norton’s extensive and groundbreaking work.” —Ben Minteer, Arizona State University, author of Refounding Environmental Ethics “Engaging and important.” —Sahotra Sarkar, University of Texas at Austin, author of Environmental Philosophy: From Theory to Practice

Download or read book Environmental Decisionmaking for the 21st Century written by Mark Squillace and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government officials make myriad decisions that affect our natural resources and environment. Many people care deeply about these decisions, perhaps because they want to develop or use some of these resources, or perhaps because they want to protect them. This book focuses on how and why agencies make decisions that impact the environment, and it explains how interested parties can and do influence those decisions. In this way, it serves to guide students toward making their own meaningful contributions to decisionmaking. Although examples from state and global authorities are considered, the book focuses on federal agencies and the laws and procedures that inform their decisions.

Download or read book Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making written by Stephen P. Depoe and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2004-02-03 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the critical role of community members and other interested parties in environmental policy decision making.

Download or read book Intergovernmental Decisionmaking for Environmental Protection and Public Works written by United States. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Decision Making for a Sustainable Environment written by Chris Maser and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2012-07-26 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasingly, environmental decision making is like playing a multidimensional game of chess. With interactions between the atmosphere, the litho-hydrosphere, and the biosphere, the game is at once a measure of complexity, uncertainty, interdisciplinary acuity, social-environmental sustainability, and social justice for all generations. As such, it

Download or read book Participation and the Quality of Environmental Decision Making written by F. Coenen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-10-15 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is clear that our society must become a more sustainable one. To that end, we must change both our production and our consumption patterns. Some argue that this implies the abolition of democratic processes, and thus of citizens' participation in environmental policy. Others argue the opposite: the only way to avoid impending environmental disaster is by engaging in common deliberation and contemplation. Is participation, then, a negative force or not? This volume is one of the first coordinated attempts to study the relationship between democratic, participatory forms of decision making and the quality of environmental decisions. The central question is how can the normatively desirable practice of participatory decision making be combined with an effective approach to environmental issues? Guided by a theoretical introduction by the editors, the 15 chapters deal with topics ranging from the scale of environmental problems, local agenda 21, infrastructural decisions, strategic planning, to environmental policy in developing countries. Three chapters are devoted to each of these broad themes. Each presents either a theoretical or an empirical argument about the central research question, shedding light on such issues as the measurement of decision quality, participation techniques, and the link between participation and decision quality, drawing on experience gained in Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Africa. The introductions to the individual parts of the book have been collectively written by the contributors, who represent a range of professional disciplines, including political science, public policy and planning.

Download or read book Democracy in Practice written by Thomas C. Beierle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In spite of the expanding role of public participation in environmental decisionmaking, there has been little systematic examination of whether it has, to date, contributed toward better environmental management. Neither have there been extensive empirical studies to examine how participation processes can be made more effective. Democracy in Practice brings together, for the first time, the collected experience of 30 years of public involvement in environmental decisionmaking. Using data from 239 cases, the authors evaluate the success of public participation and the contextual and procedural factors that lead to it. Thomas Beierle and Jerry Cayford demonstrate that public participation has not only improved environmental policy, but it has also played an important educational role and has helped resolve the conflict and mistrust that often plague environmental issues. Among the authors' findings are that intensive 'problem-solving' processes are most effective for achieving a broad set of social goals, and participant motivation and agency responsiveness are key factors for success. Democracy in Practice will be useful for a broad range of interests. For researchers, it assembles the most comprehensive data set on the practice of public participation, and presents a systematic typology and evaluation framework. For policymakers, political leaders, and citizens, it provides concrete advice about what to expect from public participation, and how it can be made more effective. Democracy in Practice concludes with a systematic guide for use by government agencies in their efforts to design successful public participation efforts.