An Approach to Evaluating Environmental, Social, and Economic Factors in Water Resources Planning

Decisions among water resources planning alternatives must consider, along with engineering and economics, a variety of environmental and social effects which are viewed and weighted differently by different interest groups. This paper briefly discusses present methods of project evaluation and then describes an approach adapted from highway planning literature for evaluating both monetary and non‐monetary variables and presenting them to decision makers at all levels. Social and environmental consequences are analyzed and presented using a graphical description called a “factor profile,” which measures in appropriate units all relevant non‐monetary effects of each alternative. Then, using the factor profile and engineering‐economic analysis, a series of paired comparisons are made to obtain a preference ranking among alternatives. Since preference decisions are extremely complex, a step by step procedure to simplify the decision‐making process is described. A case example considering four proposed flood control alternatives with the relevant environmental and social impacts is given to illustrate the use of the factor profile and the decision making procedure