Browsing by Subject "Multi-criteria analysis"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Open Access
Targeting Potential Conservation Sites for Swallow-tailed Kites (Elanoides forficatus) in Levy County, Florida
(2009-04-24T14:11:50Z) Gruber, Julia
The Swallow-tailed Kite (Elanoides forficatus) is facing population declines due to habitat loss and fragmentation across much of its remnant range. Current population estimates suggest that fewer than 5000 of these graceful birds of prey remain, with 60-65% of the population breeding in Florida during the summer months. Levy County, Florida, is a known “hot spot” for kites and serves as the focal area for this project. The goal of this study is to provide an objective, science-based approach for prioritizing areas for kite conservation, as it is critical that conservation resources be used efficiently. Using a species specific habitat model and county tax mapping data, nine ecological and socio-economic criteria were developed in GIS for inclusion in the prioritization scheme. A multi-criteria compromise analysis was performed to calculate a conservation score for each parcel, effectively ranking the parcels in terms of their value for kite conservation. The mean score of the parcels under consideration was 19.6, with 94 parcels scoring greater than 70. Parcels that have already been conserved scored significantly higher (mean = 44.8), which indicates that the conservation areas in Levy County are protecting habitat suitable for Swallow-tailed Kites. The criteria ranking and weighting schemes used for this analysis can be easily modified to meet the needs and goals of different end-users. Cooperative management, land acquisitions, conservation easements, and landowner partnerships are a few examples of conservation actions that may benefit this imperiled species. This parcel prioritization scheme, designed specifically for Swallow-tailed Kites, provides an analytical approach for planning such conservation efforts.
Open Access
Valuing Nature in Business-A Case Study of Chemical Manufacturing and Forest Products Industries
(2014-04-24) Browning, Peter; Gong, Mimi; Hu, Tianyang; Marx, Charles; Natake, Taichi
Over the past several decades, there has been an increased realization of the extent to which the means of production in human society depend on and impact increasingly fragile natural systems. Working with our client, The Nature Conservancy, we researched trends in ecosystem valuation within the chemical manufacturing and forest product industries, discerning ways to identify and evaluate future ecosystem investment opportunities. This research resulted in a framework that businesses could use to identify future ecosystem service opportunities and then score the opportunities’ business values using a multi-criteria analysis approach. We identified potential ecosystem service opportunities by overlaying classifications of business risk on major operational subsectors within the industries, populating the resulting table with key ecosystem impacts and opportunities. Through the application of this process, we identified three hypothetical ecosystem service projects applicable to both the chemical manufacturing and forest product industries and used them to test our scoring framework. The identified projects were constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment, coastal habitat protection for storm surge protection, and forest carbon sequestration. We ranked the business value of each project using five criteria important to businesses: financial value, reputational benefits, environmental risk reduction, political and regulatory enabling conditions, and level of knowledge and activity in the field. According to our research, businesses emphasize financial benefits most highly when evaluating potential investments, so we weighted financial values most heavily in our ranking scheme. Our analysis indicated that a forest carbon sequestration project had the highest potential business value relative to the other project types due to its higher expected financial benefits. The constructed wetland project, which also had a relatively high expected financial benefit, followed second. Finally, the coastal habitat protection project had the lowest relative business value due to high costs, a low level of scientific knowledge, and weak regulatory support. The identification and ranking methodologies are designed to be flexible, allowing adaptation for use given varying business objectives. The weights on the five valuation criteria can be adjusted to reflect a business’s concerns. This scoring methodology is useful for businesses because few tools exist to enable comparative analysis of business ecosystem service investments. We believe this tool provides a useful approach to determining the value that nature and ecosystem services provide to a wide range of businesses, and we recommend its application outside the chemical manufacturing and forest products industry for further refinement.