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The idea of this book started at approximately 33.000 feet, somewhere above the Alps. On our way to a workshop in Venice we had the opportunity of appreciating the different types of landscapes and the complex patchwork of urban areas, agriculture, forests, rivers and lakes that can be seen from an aircraft. The complexity of this puzzle, and the complex task of managing its evolution, became the topic of conversation for the rest of the flight. It also became the topic of this book. Land-use management and multicriteria analysis offer countless opportunities for mutual reinforcement. These two fields have developed largely independently, but a trend towards the exploration of their synergies is now emerging. This is clear from the recent literature on land-use management, spatial analysis and spatial planning, which increasingly includes references to multicriteria methodologies and decision analysis. At the same time, a growing share of multicriteria applications now focus on environmental and land-use issues. This book includes contributions from authors coming from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. All together they highlight current issues in multicriteria analysis and land-use management from theoretical, methodological and practical perspectives.
List of contents
Land-use management and the path towards sustainability.- I: Problem structuring for land-use management.- Conflicts between conservation goals and land use for exotic forest plantations in South Africa.- Structuring the process of choosing rice varieties at the south of Brazil.- II: The multiple dimensions of land-use management.- Rural landscape and economic results of the farm; a multi-objective approach.- Multicriteria evaluation of sustainable agricultural land use: a case study of Lesvos.- Multicriteria evaluation methods in renewable resource management: integrated water management under drought conditions.- Assessment, evaluation and allocation of funds to infrastructure projects: the case of the road network in Lombardy (Italy).- A farm multicriteria analysis model for the economic and environmental evaluation of agricultural land use.- III: Multiple actors and multiple perspectives in land-use decisions.- Spatial conflicts in transport policies: an exploration of the perspectives of regional and local actors.- An algorithm for computing multiple attribute additive value measurement ranges under a hierarchy of the criteria: application to farm or rangeland management decisions.- Using decision panels to evaluate hydropower development projects.- Improving decision-making for land-use management: key ideas for an integrated approach based on MCA negotiation forums.- IV: Spatial information in land-use management.- Multi-criteria and multi-objective decision making for land allocation using GIS.- Map transformation and aggregation methods for spatial decision support.- Multi-criteria analysis and Geographic Information Systems: analysis of natural areas and ecological distributions.- Multicriterion planning of protected-area buffer zones: an application to Mexico's Izta-Popo national park.- Agro-ecological zones and Resource Management Domains (RMDs) in relation to land-use planning.- V: Looking ahead.- Land-use trends in Europe: simulation, presentation and scenario evaluation of future options.- Long term comprehensive evaluation strategies for spatial planning, design and management.- List of authors.
About the author
Peter Nijkamp is Professor in Regional and Urban Economics and in Economic Geography at the VU University, Amsterdam. His main research interests cover quantitative plan evaluation, regional and urban modelling, multicriteria analysis, transport systems analysis, mathematical systems modelling, technological innovation, entrepreneurship, environmental and resource management, and sustainable development. In the past years he has focussed his research in particular on new quantitative methods for policy analysis, as well as on spatial-behavioural analysis of economic agents. He has a broad expertise in the area of public policy, services planning, infrastructure management and environmental protection. In all these fields he has published many books and numerous articles.§In 1996, he was awarded the most prestigious scientific prize in the Netherlands, the Spinoza award.
