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DASEES: A decision analysis tool with Bayesian networks from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program
Citation:
Stockton, T., B. Dyson, J. Carriger, W. Fisher, AND S. Yee. DASEES: A decision analysis tool with Bayesian networks from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program. Presented at BayesiaLab Users Conference, Orlando, FL, October 24, 2013.
Impact/Purpose:
To discuss a work flow coupling decision analysis with Bayesian networks for sustainable and healthy community applications
Description:
Tackling environmental, economic, and social sustainability issues with community stakeholders will often lead to choices that are costly, complex and uncertain. A formal process with proper guidance is needed to understand the issues, identify sources of disagreement, consider the technical and value-based trade-offs, and analyze the major uncertainties. This presentation will discuss a new software tool and methodology designed to bring clarity to complicated societal decisions called DASEES- Decision Analysis for a Sustainable Environment, Economy and Society. The steps in DASEES include characterizing the decision problem, selecting objectives to describe what stakeholders care about, choosing measures, creatively identifying new alternatives, examining consequences, and weighing objectives. The trade-offs between economic, social, and ecological values are clarified in these steps along with the examination of the chosen alternatives for achieving objectives. Integral to the DASEES process are Bayesian network techniques for deriving new alternatives with stakeholders to better achieve objectives and understand uncertainties. The DASEES process can be used to clarify what stakeholders care about and to apply local knowledge, expert beliefs and scientific data toward sustainable environmental management policies. The first 3 steps in DASEES generate a set of decision alternatives and measures that form the basis for a Bayesian Network. This allows analysis of uncertainty, sensitivity and value of information. DASEES is an open source web application that, once completed, will be publicly available. Users will be able to adapt the DASEES tools and methods to create better opportunities in their own decisions.