Multi-criteria approval for evaluating landscape management strategies (Case study: Fruska Gora National Park)

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of multi-criteria evaluation of four management strategies for Fruška Gora National Park. The criteria set was defined in accordance with the IUCN guidelines for management of national parks. Four strategies were evaluated by testing preference intensities for each alternative with the respect to each criterion. Alternatives with preference above the approval threshold were approved, and a multi-criteria approval matrix was generated. According to the matrix, the most suitable management strategy was identified. It implies an intense protection of natural resources and landscape diversity in the national park by applying bio-engineering measures. This illustrative example proved that multi-criteria approval can be considered as a good decision support tool when there is no need for a deeper insight into cardinal values of criteria weights and alternatives, or if the decision maker has to select few from many of alternatives to reduce the decision problem. For a more precise analysis, it is recommended to combine multi-criteria approval with other decision support tools, and future studies might deal with this problem in order to define an alternative framework for decision making in landscape management.