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e-Democracy pp 201–221Cite as

Web-Based Decision Support: Creating a Culture of Applying Multi-criteria Decision Analysis and Web-Supported Participation in Environmental Decision Making

Part of the Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation book series (AGDN,volume 5)

Abstract

The proliferation of the Internet has opened new opportunities to support communication in participatory decision making. We now also have tools to support decision analytical approaches. These opportunities are of special interest in environmental policy problems, which typically include multiple objectives and stakeholders who are geographically distributed. However, we still have very limited experiences on the exploitation of these opportunities. In this chapter, we describe some web-based decision analytical tools and a framework for their use. We also discuss the ways and requirements to apply these tools and web support in environmental planning processes. The framework is reflected with experiences from four lake regulation projects in Finland. Our conclusions include that technology push does not work, but a culture of web-based participation develops through well-designed and documented case projects. Only then can we expect public stakeholders and authorities to accept this approach.

Keywords

  • Stakeholder Group
  • Participatory Process
  • Environmental Planning
  • Steering Group
  • Approval Vote

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Acknowledgments

The research reported on the applications of multi-criteria decision support methods in environmental decision making has, in part, been funded by the Academy of Finland through the RESTORE and PRIMEREG (52793) projects. However, the views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the project consortiums. Jyri Mustajoki acknowledges the financial support from the Academy of Finland (project 127264).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Systems Analysis Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki, Finland

    Raimo P. Hämäläinen

  2. Department of Automation Science and Engineering, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland

    Jyri Mustajoki

  3. Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki, Finland

    Mika Marttunen

Authors
  1. Raimo P. Hämäläinen
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  2. Jyri Mustajoki
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  3. Mika Marttunen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raimo P. Hämäläinen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Depto. Informatica, Estadistica, Universitdad Rey Juan Carlos, Tulipan s/n, Mostoles, 28933, Spain

    David Rios Insua

  2. Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Booth Street W., Manchester, M15 6PB, United Kingdom

    Simon French

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Hämäläinen, R.P., Mustajoki, J., Marttunen, M. (2010). Web-Based Decision Support: Creating a Culture of Applying Multi-criteria Decision Analysis and Web-Supported Participation in Environmental Decision Making. In: Rios Insua, D., French, S. (eds) e-Democracy . Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9045-4_12

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