The role of multi-criteria decision analysis in a transdisciplinary process: co-developing a flood forecasting system in western Africa

[摘要] Climate change is projected to increase flood risks in western Africa. In the FANFAR project, a pre-operational flood early warningsystem (FEWS) for western Africa was co-designed in workshops with 50–60 stakeholders from 17 countries, adopting multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). We aimed at (i) designing a FEWS with western African stakeholdersusing MCDA and (ii) evaluating participatory MCDA as a transdisciplinary process. To achieve the first aim (i), we used MCDA methods for problemstructuring and preference elicitation in workshops. Problem structuringincluded stakeholder analysis, creating 10 objectives to be achieved by theFANFAR FEWS and designing 11 possible FEWS configurations. Experts predicted FEWS configuration performance, which we integrated withstakeholder preferences. We tested MCDA results in sensitivity analyses.Three FEWSs showed good performance, despite uncertainty, and were robust across different preferences. For stakeholders it was most important thatthe FEWS produces accurate, clear, timely, and accessible flood riskinformation. To achieve the second aim (ii), we clustered commoncharacteristics of collaborative governance frameworks from thesustainability science and transdisciplinary literature. Our frameworkemphasizes issues crucial to the earth systems sciences, such as uncertainty and integrating interdisciplinary knowledge. MCDA can address both well. Other strengths of MCDA are co-producing knowledge with stakeholders andproviding a consistent methodology with unambiguous, shared results.Participatory MCDA including problem structuring can contribute toco-designing a project but does not achieve later phases of transdisciplinary processes well, such as co-disseminating and evaluatingresults. We encourage colleagues to use MCDA and the proposed framework forevaluating transdisciplinary hydrology research that engages withstakeholders and society.

[学科分类] 妇产科学