A Decision Support Framework for Environmental Planning in Developing Countries

This paper presents a decision support framework for environmental planning in developing countries. The interest in protecting the natural environment from pollution gained increased importance in the 1990s with a push by world communities for sustainable development. Developing countries as well as the industrialized nations are expected to cut down on pollution and control the use of non-renewable natural resources. Although the concept of sustainable development sounds plausible, it is difficult to implement in many countries due to their conflicting goals. The world-wide targets on emissions, use of fossil fuels, reduction in water and atmospheric pollution require the participation of every nation. These goals are not easily achievable by some of the poorer developing countries partly because of their economic dependence on natural resources and partly because of their inability to afford more modern and efficient technologies. Thus, environmental planning goals are often in conflict with the development,social and economic needs of a country. In this paper, we develop a decision support framework that utilizes multicriteria and optimization models to address environmental planning problems. This framework is based on identifying the priorities of conflicting goals by working through and reducing the conflicts. A strategic planning framework is introduced into the decision support system since national planning is a strategic issue and these goals can only be achieved by adopting a systemic view.