Comparative assessment of large dam projects [Elektronische Ressource] : a challenge for multi-criteria decision analysis / Elke Petersson

Petersson

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• Publié par: technischen_universitat_darmstadt
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 21
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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ZIT-Publik 23/2007
Veröffentlichungen des Zentrums für Interdisziplinäre Technikforschung der TU Darmstadt
Elke Petersson
Comparative Assessment of Large Dam Projects
-A Challenge for Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis-
Darmstadt, January 2007
Hochschulstrasse 1
D-64289 Darmstadt
Fon: [phone]
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http://www.zit.tu-darmstadt.deZIT-Publik 23/2007
Veröffentlichungen des Zentrums für Interdisziplinäre Technikforschung der TU Darmstadt
Zugleich Dissertation an der TU Darmstadt unter dem selben Titel (D 17)
Die Autorin dankt dem Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Technikforschung (ZIT) der TU
Darmstadt für die freundliche Unterstützung der Veröffentlichung
Das Werk einschließlich seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung ist
ohne eine Zustimmung der Verfasserin unzulässig. Dies gilt insbesondere für
Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeisung und
Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen.
ISSN: 1618-8403
ISBN: 978-3-936294-08-8 The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything
“Never again,” cried the man, ”never again will we wake up in the morning and think
Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Does it really, cosmically speaking, matter if I
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and simple answer to all these nagging little problems of Life, the Universe and
everything!”….
“You’re really not going to like it,” observed Deep Thought.
“Tell us!”
“All right,” said Deep Thought. “The answer to the Great question…”
“Yes…!”
“Of Life, the Universe and Everything…” said Deep Thought.
“Yes…!”
“Is…” said Deep thought, and paused.
“Yes…!”
“Is….”
“Yes…!!!…?”
“Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half
million years’ work?”
“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the
answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually
known what the question is.”
Source: (Adams 1980) Acknowledgements
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This doctoral thesis would not have been possible without the cooperation and assistance
of numerous persons and institutions. Only their unreserved and generous support in
many different ways enabled me to comprehensively analyse the role of MCDA methods
in the large dam context.
I thank Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred Ostrowski and Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Dirk Ipsen for their
unconditional support of the dissertation and fruitful discussions on relevant disciplinary
and interdisciplinary aspects. The work owes much to the scientific and personal advice
from my colleagues Judith Elbe and Stephanie Petrasch at the Centre for Interdisciplinary
Studies of Technology. I very much appreciate the time I could spend at Fondazione Eni
Enrico Mattei (feem) in Venice that was made possible by a Marie-Curie Fellowship of the
European Commission. The fruitful and inspiring collaboration with Prof. Carlo Giupponi
and Jacobo Feás at feem marks the initial step forward in writing this doctoral thesis.
Survey III is the result of these joint efforts. I also express my gratitude to Dr. Detlev
Belke, Institute of Engineering Hydrology and Water Resources Management, for the joint
mental struggle to hone the final reasoning. This work would not have been possible
without the generous financial and temporal resources provided by Dr. Gerhard Stärk as
the managing director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Technology. Lahmeyer
International made available information on their MOSES DSS and thus enabled one of
the surveys carried out. I also thank all students that contributed to this doctoral thesis
through their investigations and their student projects. Raphael Beecroft, Martha Gibson,
and Jana Kaiser were of great help in proofreading the text and account for valuable
linguistic improvements. In general, thanks go to my colleagues at the Centre for
Interdisciplinary Studies of Technology and at the Institute of Engineering Hydrology and
Water Resources Management for their creative input and time. Last but not least, thanks
go to my family and friends for their unlimited patience, for mental and scientific support,
for proofreading, and, most important, for their company.
IAbstract
ABSTRACT
To face the continuously intensifying conflicts surrounding large dam projects, the
international World Commission on Dams (WCD) has developed a set of
recommendations on how to attain the equitable and sustainable development of water
and energy resources. One such recommendation emphasises the need to, in the first
instance, carry out a comprehensive options assessment in which both positive and
negative project impacts are taken into consideration. The WCD furthermore recommends
that this necessary assessment be formalised through the use of multi-criteria decision
analysis (MCDA), although MCDA has up until now seldom been applied to the large dam
context. This thesis will therefore pursue three aims:
1. To improve the understanding of the decision situation
2. To investigate the applicability of MCDA, its compatibility with the guiding principle of
sustainable development and the significance of its results.
3. To recommend methodological improvements.
This dissertation offers an understanding of large dams and their complex interactions
with the natural environment and society’s subsystems as a system and connects the
MCDA theory to it. The thesis furthermore provides a link between the theoretical analysis
of the strengths and weaknesses pertaining to MCDA – independent of its specific
methods – and the findings of three analytical surveys, all of which bear direct relation to
the comparison of large dam projects in practice. These surveys are:
A comparison of computer-aided MCDA-tools for the large dam context, regarding
methodological and content-related strengths and weaknesses.
A retrospective quality analysis of a real-world application of one of the investigated
tools for a large dam project in Laos.
A theoretical reproduction of the decision to build a large dam in Turkey in the 1970s,
applying one of the investigated tools.
The strengths of MCDA can be found in its formalisation of the procedure, while its
weaknesses are caused by methodological problems posed by the individual steps of the
analysis. It will be shown that MCDA can be used to support the comparison of large dam
projects. Splitting the decision into several more manageable decisions formalises the
procedure, improves the understanding of the decision situation, increases the
transparency of the decision-making process for the public, and facilitates conflict
management. In practice, the weaknesses of the procedure are considered to outweigh its
strengths. This is in particular due to the formalised aggregation of objective and
subjective information. MCDA methods can be misleading, due to their tendency to
overemphasise numerical results. The significance of the results is limited by the
complexity reduction required. In addition to this, the assumptions necessary to the
methods are loaded with a high level of uncertainty and the many small decisions to be
made transform meanings. These effects interact in an irreproducible manner when
integrated into an overall result. At the same time, it is impossible to validate the methods
and to compare the individual methods with each other. Therefore, even the choice of a
particular aggregation algorithm contains subjective preference information.
As regards future application, MCDA should be broadened to include a form of quality
management and its methods should only be understood as one element of a wider,
explorative analysis of the decision situation. It will furthermore be necessary to create
decision-making structures which avoid the export of problems into other sectors and
which mediate between different interests.
II
x
x
xZusammenfassung
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Als Reaktion auf die sich verschärfenden Konflikte um große Talsperren, erarbeitete die
internationale World Commission on Dams (WCD) Empfehlungen, wie einer gerechten
und nachhaltigen Entwicklung von Wasser- und Energieressourcen entsprochen werden
kann. Eine der Empfehlungen betont die Notwendigkeit, vorab einen Vergleich möglicher
alternativer Projekte unter Berücksichtigung sowohl positiver als auch negativer
Auswirkungen durchzuführen. Die WCD rät, die Bewertung mit Hilfe der
Mehrkriterienverfahren (MCDA) zu formalisieren. Bisher liegen für den Vergleich von
alternativen Talsperrenprojekten aber nur sehr wenig Erfahrungen mit diesen Methoden
vor. Daher verfolgt die Dissertation drei Ziele:
1. Das Verständnis der Entscheidungssituation soll verbessert werden.
2. Die Anwendbarkeit der MCDA, ihre Kompatibilität mit dem Leitbild einer nachhaltigen
Entwicklung und die Aussagekraft der Ergebnisse sollen überprüft werden.
3. Es sollen Empfehlungen für eine methodische Verbesserung gegeben werden.
Die