Comparison of AHP and a Utility-Based Theory Method for Selected Vertical and Horizontal Forest Structure Indicators in the Sustainability Assessment of Forest Management in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park, Madrid Region
| Autor: | Adrián Gómez-Serrano, Cristina Pascual, Eugenio Martínez-Falero, Susana Martín-Fernández |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
Decision support system
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Horizontal and vertical AHP Geography Planning and Development Forest management Analytic hierarchy process TJ807-830 Context (language use) utility theory based method 010501 environmental sciences Management Monitoring Policy and Law TD194-195 01 natural sciences Renewable energy sources sustainable forest management assessment GE1-350 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Environmental effects of industries and plants Renewable Energy Sustainability and the Environment National park business.industry Environmental resource management Environmental sciences Geography Sustainability Pairwise comparison business |
| Zdroj: | Sustainability; Volume 10; Issue 11; Pages: 4101 Sustainability, Vol 10, Iss 11, p 4101 (2018) |
| ISSN: | 2071-1050 |
| DOI: | 10.3390/su10114101 |
| Popis: | This paper compares two pairwise comparison methods, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and a utility theory based method (UTB method), for sustainability assessment in forest management at the local level. Six alternatives were ranked, corresponding to six different types of forest management in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park in the Madrid Region in Spain. The methods were tested by postgraduate students enrolled in a “Decision Support Systems” course at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Three sustainability indicators were considered: structural diversity, timber yield, and amount of biomass. The utility theory based method was the first to be compared, which is implemented in the computer program SILVANET. For each pair of alternatives, the students were asked which one they considered to be more sustainable. In the case of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, the students compared the indicators and the alternatives for each indicator. The Spearman’s correlation coefficient indicated that there was no correlation between the rankings for most of the students. The results revealed that the convergence in opinion in the AHP method was higher than in the utility based method for a low number of participants, and distinguished the differences between the alternatives more accurately. However in the case of the UTB method, the participants considered sustainability as a whole and made a more context-based comparison. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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