DASEES Consequence Analysis For Environmental Management Decision Making Volume 2: Technical Documentation
Citation:
Dyson, B., J. Carriger, T. Stockton, AND Timothy J. Canfield. DASEES Consequence Analysis For Environmental Management Decision Making Volume 2: Technical Documentation. U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, Washington, DC, EPA/600/B-22/078, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
In the report Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society (National Research Council, 1996), the National Research Council describes an approach for risk-based decision making using an analytic-deliberative process that promotes and integrates public participation and values with reliable technical and scientific input. The intention being to characterize and communicate environmental and health risk to decision makers and stakeholders in a way that addresses key concerns without oversimplifying science, preventing its inappropriate application. These ideas served the Office of Research and Development with furthering its research goals according to the Risk Assessment/Risk Management framework outlined in the “Red Book” (National Research Council, 1983). Subsequently, the EPA’s Office of Research and Development re-organized its research programs around concepts of sustainability discussed in the “Green Book” (National Research Council, 2011) providing a way to augment risk management decisions through environmental, economic, and social assessments. Building specifically off the definition of sustainability in Executive Order 13514:” to create and maintain conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations”, the EPA charged the National Research Council to investigate scientific tools and approaches for incorporating sustainability-based assessments into EPA decision making. The resulting report Sustainability Concepts in Decision-Making: Tools and Approaches for the US EPA (National Research Council, 2014), recommended tools with features providing systems-thinking, methods for valuation of ecosystem services, trade-offs, and uncertainty analyses. The decision analytic model DASEES (Decision Analysis for a Sustainable Environment, Economy, and Society) is a general consequence model that addresses many of the National Research Council recommendations for sustainability-based tools by using an analytic-deliberative process for group decision making with a systems approach, providing methods for risk assessment, valuation, trade-offs, and uncertainty analysis.
Description:
Decision Analysis for a Sustainable Environment, Economy and Society (DASEES) is a web application that facilitates a structured decision making (SDM) approach for decision problems. SDM is a group decision making process (Gregory et al, 2012) that aims to 1) develop common understanding of an issue and 2) create, evaluate, select, and implement innovative solutions. DASEES enables decision makers and stakeholders to apply a transparent and defensible method to decision making based on a five-step process: 1. Context: understand the underlying context of the decision, 2. Objectives: define desired outcomes through objectives, 3. Options: identify options (alternatives) for achieving desired outcomes, 4. Consequences: evaluate options using applicable data and models, 5. Take Action: develop a monitoring and adaptive management plan. These five steps help integrate fact-based information with stakeholder-derived values in an analytic-deliberative structure (Gregory, et al. 2012). The deliberative aspects of DASEES support issue framing, developing objectives, and evaluation measures through stakeholder engagement. The analytic aspects support the integration of data, information, models, and tools identified as necessary to assess the consequences of proposed solutions. DASEES is a project driven application. The technical guide outline follows the five-step process for the DASEES Structured Decision project type. The DASEES Prioritization project uses the same tools and concepts but in a slightly different arrangement. The user should be able to apply this technical guidance to both types of projects. For more information on the project types, please see DASEES Consequence Analysis for Environmental Management Decision Making Volume 1: User Guide. DASEES can support stakeholder-driven solutions, including civic and environmental groups, the scientific community, and local, state, and federal entities. DASEES provides a framework for scientists, decision makers, and stakeholders to use relevant data and information for decisions and identify additional research needed to fill knowledge gaps. Depending on the decision context, users may opt to seek trained assistance in facilitation and elicitation in group settings. Philips (2007) and Gregory et al (2012) describe the consultation process with analysts using decision-analytic tools such as DASEES. From a decision science perspective DASEES combines components of value-focused thinking, probabilistic modeling, and multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) in an application of interconnected guidance, analysis, tools, and templates that can be used interactively to build decision models for environmental problem solving.