This discussion paper led to an article in <I>Applied Geography</I> (2014). Volume 49(SI), pages 24-36.<P> The strong world-wide urbanisation trend calls for a repositioning of cities, especially the large cities with a global impact. These cities tend to become economic, logistic and political...</p></i>

An integrated ecological-economic decision-making approach is developed to help local stakeholders decide on land use in rural areas where the conflict between natural resource protection and economic development is pressing. It consists of four methodological steps. In the first step the...

This discussion paper presents the Integrated Methodological Approach for participatory multi-criteria decision support under uncertainty (IMA), which emerged from the debates about participation, multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and benefit-cost analysis (BCA). It provides a framework for...

An assessment of the consequences of biological invasions and of the measures taken against must be at the base of each social decision in this field. Three forms of uncertainty can be distinguished that make such a decision difficult to take: (1) factual uncertainty, which encompasses not only...

Poverty is a multidimensional, fuzzy and complex phenomenon that cannot be faithfully represented by mono-dimensional monetary indicators. In the last years, much research has been devoted to tackle poverty fuzziness, while less attention has been paid to poverty complexity. In this paper, we...

The aim of this paper is to describe a method for evaluating the vulnerability of drinking water systems to contamination, in particular in rural regions used intensively for agriculture. To do so, various indicators were developed to represent the source to tap multi-barrier approach for...

In the expectation of the EU integration, the improvement of the economic growth on medium term constitutes a national strategic objective. The achievement of a compatible economy regarding to the mechanism, structure and legislative with the EU countries economies allows for a multitude of...

The science of public finances has an arsenal of methods, techniques and procedures which on long term allow it to act by eliminating waste and losses from the complex mechanism of public finances. An important component of this mechanism is engaging the public expenditure, through which the...

There are two mainstreams when using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). One is the standard applications of crisp distributive and ideal mode versions. The other is characterised by fuzzification of the AHP methodology and by attempts to better tackle inherently uncertain and imprecise...

Floods, the most common natural hazard in the world, cause serious loss in terms of lives, buildings, and infrastructures. As a consequence, the need for flood risk assessment has become critical. Using a semi-quantitative model and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) weighting approach,...