Abstract
While riparian vegetation can play a major role in protecting land, water and natural habitat in catchments, there are high costs associated with tree planting and establishment and in diverting land from cropping. The distribution of costs and benefits of riparian revegetation creates conflicts in the objectives of various stakeholder groups, and elicitation of importance weights of objectives and determination of rankings of a number of policy options by these stakeholder groups becomes critical in decision-making. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a multicriteria analysis technique that provides an appropriate tool to accommodate the conflicting views of various stakeholder groups. The AHP allows the users to assess the relative importance of multiple criteria (or multiple alternatives against a given criterion) in an intuitive manner. This paper presents an application of AHP to obtain preference weights of environmental, social and economic objectives which have been used in ranking riparian revegetation policy options in a small catchment (watershed) in north Queensland, Australia. The preference weights towards environmental, economic and social objectives have been obtained for the various stakeholder groups (landholders, representatives of local sugar mill staff, environmentalists, recreational fishers and the local community). The AHP technique has proved useful in eliciting objectives and ranking policy options as well as in checking for consistency of the statements of stakeholder groups. Implementation of this approach requires a complex data elicitation process.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alho, J.M. and Kangas, J. (1997), ‘Analysing uncertainties in experts’ opinions of forest plan performance’, Forest Science, 43(4): 521–528.
Bell, R. (1996), Johnstone river catchment revegetation strategy, Johnstone River Catchment Management Association Inc, Innisfail.
Diaz-Balteiro, L. and Romero, C. (1997), ‘Modeling timber harvest scheduling problems with multiple criteria: an application in Spain’, Forest Science, 44(1): 47–57.
DiNardo, G., Levy, D. and Golden, B. (1989), ‘Using decision analysis to Maryland’s River Herring Fishery: An application of AHP’, Journal of Environmental Management, 29(1): 193–213.
E.C.Inc. (Expert Choice Inc.), (1995), Decision support software: tutorial, expert choice, Student Version 9, Expert Choice Inc., Pittsburgh.
Goosam, S. and Tucker, N.I.J. (1995), Repairing the Rainforest: Theory and Practice of Rainforest Re-Establishment in North Queensland’s Wet Tropics, Wet Tropics Management Authority, Cairns.
Harrison, S.R., Herbohn, J.L. and Niskanen, A.J. (2002), ‘Non-Industrial, Small Holder, Small-scale and Family Forestry: What’s in a name?’, Small-Scale Forest Economics, Management and Policy, 1(1): 1–11.
Harrison, S.R. and Qureshi, M.E. (1999), Identification of stakeholder objectives for multicriteria analysis, paper presented at The 2nd International Conference on Multiple Objective Decision Support Systems, Sheraton Hotel, Brisbane, 1–6 August.
Harrison, S.R., and Qureshi, M.E. (2000), ‘Choice of stakeholder groups and members in multicriteria decision models’, Natural Resources Forum, 24(1): 11–19.
Itami, R. and Cotter, M. (1999), ‘Application of analytical hierarchy process to rank issues, projects and sites in integrated catchment management’, in P.A. Lawrence and J. Robinson (eds), Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Multiple Objective Decision Support Systems for Land, Water and Environmental Management (MODSS′99), Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Brisbane, Australia 2002, Report QNRM02143.
Janssen, R. and van Herwijnen, M. (1994), DEFINITE: A System to Support Decisions on a Finite Set of Alternatives: User Manual. Environment and Management 3, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Kangas, J. (1994), ‘An approach to public participation in strategic forest management planning’, Forest Ecology and Management, 70(1): 75–88.
Kangas, J. and Kuusipalo, J. (1993), ‘Integrating biodiversity into forest management planning and decision-making’, Forest Ecology and Management, 61(1): 1–15.
Mainuddin, M., Gupta, A.D. and Onta, P.R. (1997), ‘Optimal crop planning model for an existing groundwater irrigation project in Thailand’, Agricultural Water Management, 33(1): 43–62.
Malczewski, J., Moreno-Sanchez, R., Bojorquez-Tapia, L.A. and Ongay-Delhumeau, E. (1997), ‘Multicriteria group decision-making model for environmental conflict in the analysis in the Cape Region, Mexico’, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 40(3): 349–374.
Narumalani, S., Zhou, Y. and Jensen, J.R. (1997), ‘Application of remote sensing and geographic information systems to the delineation and analysis of riparian buffer zones’, Aquatic Botany, 58: 393–409.
Qureshi, M.E. (1999), ‘Development and implementation of a decision support process for sustainable catchment management’, unpublished PhD thesis, The University of Queensland, Brisbane.
Qureshi, M.E. and Harrison, S.R. (2001a), ‘A decision support process to compare riparian revegetation options in Scheu Creek catchment in North Queensland’, Journal of Environmental Management, Vol. 62(1): 101–112.
Qureshi, M.E. and Harrison, S.R. (2001b), ‘Economic evaluation of riparian revegetation options in North Queensland’, in S.R. Harrison and J.L. Herbohn (eds), Sustainable Farm Forestry in the Tropics, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 147–160.
Qureshi, M.E. and Harrison, S.R. (2002), ‘Economic Instruments and Regulatory Approaches in Implementation of Riparian Revegetation Options: Observations of the Queensland System’, Australian Journal of Environmental Management, 9(2): 89–98.
Reynolds, K.M., and Holsten, E.H. (1994), ‘Relative importance of risk factors for spruce bettle outbreaks’, Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 24(1): 2089–2095.
Saaty, T.L. (1990), The Analytic Hierarchy Process, 2nd edn, RWS Publications, Pittsburgh.
Saaty, T.L. (1995), Decision Making for Leaders: the Analytic Hierarchy Process for Decisions in a Complex World, RWS Publications, Pittsburgh.
Saaty, T.L., and Gholamnezhad, H. (1982), ‘High-level nuclear waste management: analysis of options’, Environment and Planning B, 9(1): 181–196.
Weiss, J. and McLaren, D. (2002), ‘Victoria’s pest plant prioritisation process’, in H. S. Jacobs, J. Dodd and J.H. Moore (eds), Proceedings of the Thirteenth Australian Weeds Conference, Plant Protection Society of Western Australia, Perth, pp. 509–512.
Xiang, W.N. (1996), ‘GIS-based riparian buffer analysis: injecting geographic information into landscape planning’, Landscape and Urban Planning, 34(1): 1–10.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Qureshi, M.E., Harrison, S.R. Application of the analytic hierarchy process to riparian revegetation policy options. Small-scale Forestry 2, 441–458 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-003-0030-6
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-003-0030-6