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INNOVATIVE RESEARCH FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
EPA Growing DASEES (Decision Analysis for a Sustainable Environment, Economy &
Society) - to Aid in Making Decisions on Complex Environmental Issues
Research Value:
A family's decision to buy a car
involves the needs of a number
of people (mom, dad, children),
and multiple concerns (cost,
safety, maybe even climate
change). In making decisions
that involve ecosystems, both the
number of people involved and
the number of concerns/ factors
increases greatly over personal
decisions. Environmental issues
often affect multiple groups of
people (often referred to as
stakeholders) in a community or
society. Environmental issues
also involve many physical,
chemical, and biological factors.
Local issues, such as a eutrophic
lake, to global ones such as
climate change, all involve many
people interacting with complex
ecosystems. All these factors
raise these decisions to a higher
level of difficulty than decisions
in our daily lives, such as family
making a decision about buying a
car. Just as a calculator is useful
for complex calculations, can
tools be developed to handle all
the factors in these complex
decisions?
Having a framework and tools to
help sort through complicated
environmental issues in an
objective way would be useful to
communities and risk managers,
and all the stakeholders affected
by these issues. This is one need
that DASEES (Decision
Analysis for a Sustainable
Environment, Economy, &
Society) can help fill.
The environment provides us
with many ecosystem services,
which sustain us and provide us
with quality of life. These
include the air we breathe, the
water we drink, plants and
animals that sustain us and add to
our quality of life, and provide
the raw materials on which all of
our economy is based. The vast
majority of environmental
decisions are made without
consideration of the roles that
ecosystem services play and how
long they can be sustained into
the future. DASEES can also
help those tasked with making
decisions about complex
environmental problems to
incorporate ecosystem services
into their decision making
processes. These tools in
DASEES more fully account for
tradeoffs, both positive and
negative, in these services and
how they affect economic and
social decisions.
The DASEES project can be
looked at as "formalized
common sense for big issues". It
creates a formal framework so
the same common sense
decision-making principles that
we use in our daily lives, can be
applied to more complex
environmental issues.
Research Details:
DASEES is an open-source, web-
based decision analysis
framework, being developed by
an integrated trans- disciplinary
research team of EPA, university,
and private company researchers.
It focuses on sustainable systems
and communities. It is flexible
but rigorous, transparent and
auditable, and adapts to new
information.
The last part of the DASEES
acronym, 'EES' acknowledges
that this approach takes into
account the environmental,
economic, and societal aspects of
what have traditionally been
defined as just environmental
issues. This formalized common
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Research and Development (ORD), National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL)
Land Remediation and Pollution Control Division (LRPCD)
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sense is referred to in technical
circles as "multi-attribute
decision analysis". These
attributes include the many
stakeholders that are affected by
decisions on environmental
issues. Other attributes include
the many physical, chemical, and
biological aspects of ecosystems.
A major strength of this approach
is that it is inclusive and
incorporates input from many
stakeholders. This framework
consists of 5 steps:
Understand Context
2
Define Objectives
I
3
Develop Options
J.
4
Evaluate Options
i
5
Take Action
Let's take a look at just the first
step in this process. First, we
must define and understand the
'context' or the boundaries of the
issue. This will include both the
physical boundaries, as well as
defining the groups and
individuals involved. Let's say
that the issue is algal blooms that
are robbing a lake ecosystem of
oxygen. Do you draw your
physical boundary at the lake's
edge, at the outskirts of the
community next to the lake, at
the boundary of the watershed
that the lake is in? You would
also need to define boundaries in
terms of which groups and
persons to include, and to
characterize relationships among
decision makers, management
options (responses), stakeholders,
and scientific information
DASEES uses tools like Social
Network Analysis and a
DPSIR analysis to define the
physical and social context or
boundaries of the issue. DPSIR
is named after its components:
Drivers, Pressures, States,
Impacts, and Responses. It is a
key tool that can be used to help
decision-makers understand the
systems context of issues. Using
consistent tools and processes,
DASEES can take an objective
look at complex environmental
issues. This process can then
generate several options for
potential solutions, involving
such things as policies, land-use
strategies, and behaviors. It can
evaluate the options in terms of
costs and benefits.
DASEES Step 4 - Evaluate Options
Cost Ecosystem Services
Finally it can make projections of
alternative futures for the various
options.
Outcomes and Impacts:
The DASEES framework is
currently being used as part of
cooperative efforts to address
real-world ecological problems
such as nutrient loads in the
Albemarle-Pamlico Watershed
and Florida Keys and sediment
runoff into Guanica Bay, Puerto
Rico.
RELATED WEB SITES:
www.epa.gov/nrmrl/lrpcd
http://www.epa.gov/ord/esrp
CONTACTS
Technical Inquiries.
Brian Dyson, 513-569-7789, EPA/
ORD/NRMRL/ LRPCD/RRB
dvson.brian(@,epa. gov
Technical Inquiries.
Marilyn Tenbrink, 401-782-3078,
EPA/ORD/NHEERL
tenbrink. marilyntgiepa. gov
Communications Inquiries
Roger Yeardley, 513-569-7548.
EPA/ ORD/NRMRL/ LRPCD
veardlev.roger(@,epa.gov
REFERENCES
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
(2009). "Decision Support Framework (DSF)
Team Research Implementation Plan."
EPA/600/R-09/104. Office of Research and
Development.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
(2009). "Ecosystem Services Decision
Support: A Living Database of Existing
Tools, Approaches and Techniques for
Supporting Decisions Related to Ecosystem
Services." EPA/600/R-09/102. Office of
Research and Development.
National Risk Management Research Laboratory
Land Remediation and Pollution Control Division
EPA/600/F-11/023
September 2011
'.epa.gov/nrmrl
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