Among the core missions of the US Army Corps of Engineers is the management and remediation of physical locations, including sites with complex environmental damage. Site managers must integrate heterogeneous technical information with stakeholder values and expert judgment. Current tools available do not explicitly incorporate decision analysis methods to support decision-making in complex environments, stakeholder opinions or economic information. Separating these components makes it difficult to consider and communicate the factors involved in decision-making. A comprehensive, decision-support platform is required to seamlessly integrate these many factors and estimate their effects. Aptima is developing the PLatform for ANalyzing Environmental Tradeoffs (PLANET) software system to combine rich, data-driven environmental model outputs with dynamic stakeholder opinions and multi-criteria analysis and decision-support tools necessary for rigorous consideration and communication of environmental management decisions. PLANET will allow users to input data from many sources; elicit stakeholder opinion over time; perform analysis required to evaluate environmental risks and anticipated outcomes of intervention alternatives; import, view and manipulate shape files from advanced geo-statistical analysis; and view and interact with results and data through trade-off information shown on graphical displays and a GIS component. These integrated functionalities will make PLANET a comprehensive decision-support system for environmental site managers.
Keywords: Environmental Management, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (Mcda),Geographic Information System (Gis), Decision-Support, Stakeholder Modeling
