Shared choices on local sustainability projects: a decision support framework

The aim of this study is to build a decision support framework for helping local governments in the identification of sustainable strategies, using a combination of various multi-criteria evaluation methods. The first part of the paper emphasises the importante of multi-criteria methods in the construction of a participative process aimed at the creation and implementation of Local Agenda 21, and justifies the choice of several complementary multi-criteria methods deployed (the Regime analysis, the Saaty method, and the NAIADE method, together with the Flag model) as tools to reduce policy conflicts and to reach a shared or joint choice in a decision-making process with multiple actors or interests. In the second part of the paper the above-mentioned methods are tested on a real world case involving the conservation and improvement of a natural resource, viz. Lake Miseno in the South of Italy. Lake Miseno located in the Campania Region is nowadays characterised by a deep controversy on maintaining the typical historical attributes of this area of exceptional archaeological and natural importance on the one hand, and the devastating urbanisation process on the other hand. This study proposes four alternative projects for the rehabilitation and re-qualification of this natural resource and develops an evaluation approach for the best strategy to meet the goal of sustainable development.