Transboundary air pollution in Europe: An interactive multicriteria tradeoff analysis

Abstract

ForewordOver the years IIASA has played an important role in developing methods for improving decision making concerning the acid rain problem. IIASA's RAINS model is accepted as a basis for negotiations between countries with regard to the abatement of acid rain. As a decision problem, the abatement of acid rain is typically a problem with several criteria, for example, the amounts of money spent by the different countries to diminish emissions and the target levels for the depositions. This paper proposes an interactive approach for finding reasonable deposition levels for all countries involved by a limited transfer of funds between those countries.The basis for this work was laid when the authors participated in IIASA's Young Scientist Summer Program. The work is a result of cooperation between the Transboundary Air Pollution Project and the Methodology Decision Analysis Project. Abstract: In this paper, the acid rain problem in Europe is discussed, stressing the transboundary tradeoffs between abatement costs of sulphur emission reduction and corresponding deposition levels in the different countries. An interactive decision support methodology is proposed which utilizes a powerful nonlinear multicriteria software package to evaluate various scenarios and tradeoffs. This methodology provides a more appropriate tool for policy making than single-objective minimization of costs with given target deposition levels, because in the latter the tradeoffs cannot be analyzed directly. The results from a tradeoff analysis using previously published data suggest that reasonable deposition levels can be reached with limited transfers of funds between countries. The extent of these transfers can be controlled by selecting appropriate target levels for the criteria across countries. JAAP WESSELS Leader Methodology Decision Analysis Project

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