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SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF AGGREGATED ENVIRONMENTAL INDICES WITH A CASE-STUDY OF THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION
Citation:
TRAN, L. T., R. V. O'NEILL, BETSY R. SMITH, AND C. G. KNIGHT. SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF AGGREGATED ENVIRONMENTAL INDICES WITH A CASE-STUDY OF THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, 39(4):506-514, (2007).
Impact/Purpose:
ReVA's program objectives are to:
Provide regional-scale, spatially explicit information on the extent and distribution of both stressors and sensitive resources.
Develop and evaluate techniques to integrate information on exposure and effects so that relative risk can be assessed and management actions can be prioritized.
Predict consequences of potential environmental changes under alternative future scenarios.
Effectively communicate economic and quality of life trade-offs associated with alternative environmental policies.
Develop techniques to prioritize areas for ecological restoration.
Identify information gaps and recommend actions to improve monitoring and focus research.
Description:
Environmental indicators are often aggregated into a single index for various purposes in environmental studies. Aggregated indices derived from the same data set can differ, usually because the aggregated indices' sensitivities are not thoroughly analyzed. Furthermore, if a sensitivity analysis is carried out, it is not presented in a transparent fashion to policy decision-makers. This paper presents a method of generating various aggregated environmental indices and analyzing their sensitivities via the use of the fuzzy set concept. Results show that several insights into the environmental conditions of the study area (e.g., the distribution of good or bad values of indicators at a watershed and or across the region) can be revealed in the sensitivity analysis of aggregated indices.