Value-focused thinking for environmental risk consultations

This paper reviews the use of a structured, value-focused decision approach for involving public and expert stakeholders in environmental risk-management consultations. We argue that a structured process provides the foundation for achieving a high-quality, participatory decision making process. We review several key elements of a structured approach to eliciting stakeholders' values, use examples from case studies to illustrate analytical techniques that have proven particularly helpful in linking analysis and deliberation, and discuss results from a small-group experiment that compares the quality and type of participants' input from conventional and structured value elicitations. In a concluding section we note some of the perils, promises, and challenges of using a structured, value-focused approach to incorporate and communicate stakeholder views as part of environmental risk-management decisions.

[1]  R. Gregory,et al.  Creating policy alternatives using stakeholder values , 1994 .

[2]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decisionmaking , 1992 .

[3]  Kristen Purcell,et al.  Public Participation and the Environment: Do We Know What Works? , 1999 .

[4]  Robin Gregory,et al.  Valuing Environmental Policy Options: A Case Study Comparison of Multiattribute and Contingent Valuation Survey Methods , 2000 .

[5]  Jonathan Baron,et al.  Regular ArticleProtected Values , 1997 .

[6]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  Characterizing Mental Models of Hazardous Processes: A Methodology and an Application to Radon , 1992 .

[7]  J. March.  Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice , 1978 .

[8]  Paul Slovic,et al.  Integrating technical analysis and public values in risk-based decision making , 1998 .

[9]  Ortwin Renn.  A Model for an Analytic−Deliberative Process in Risk Management , 1999 .

[10]  Ross D. Shachter.  Evaluating Influence Diagrams , 1986, Oper. Res..

[11]  G. W. Hill.  Group versus individual performance: are n + 1 heads better than one?" psychological bulletin , 1982 .

[12]  P. Slovic.  The Construction of Preference , 1995 .

[13]  James K. Sebenius,et al.  Negotiation analysis: a characterization and review , 1992 .

[14]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Fault trees: Sensitivity of estimated failure probabilities to problem representation. , 1978 .

[15]  M. J. Quadrel,et al.  Risk perception and communication , 2008 .

[16]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Understanding Life-Threatening Risks , 1995 .

[17]  H. Raiffa,et al.  Decisions with Multiple Objectives , 1993 .

[18]  Robin Gregory,et al.  Democratizing Risk Management: Successful Public Involvement in Local Water Management Decisions , 1999 .

[19]  Robert T. Clemen,et al.  Making Hard Decisions: An Introduction to Decision Analysis , 1997 .

[20]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Adapting the environmental impact statement process to inform decision makers , 1992 .