A prototype collaborative planning support system for hydroelectric development

This paper defines a suitable collaborative planning framework for hydroelectric development, and applies it within three decision support system modules: criteria evaluation, generation, and alternative evaluation. The collaborative planning framework involves stakeholders in the conceptual design stage of projects, and is viewed as a potentially efficient prelude to an environmental licensing. The criteria selection module incorporates the concept of grounded theory to base the interaction of decision makers on measurable facts about the problem domain. The alternative generation module embeds GIS capabilities within a decision support system that supports feedback using expert systems. It allows participants to interactively experiment with different technical alternatives, and automatically generate the consequences of selecting different technical options based on available expertise. The process of evaluating alternatives is supported by a fuzzy compromise approach which attempts to preserve the transparency and intuitiveness of the compromise programming technique for multicriteria decision-making, while incorporating various sources of uncertainty. Evaluation feedback is either in a visual form representing the range of possible performance of an alternative, or in the form of rankings. Rankings are made with fuzzy ranking measures which employ parametric control to show the impact of different outlooks on the part of decision makers.