1.1 Reading materials

• What is multi-criteria analysis and its use in trade-off analysis?
  • Agriculture, nature conservation or both? Managing trade-offs and synergies in sub-Saharan Africa
    This paper summarises key concepts relating to trade-offs and synergies and reviews different methods of trade-off analysis. On page 27 you can find an overview of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) including its strengths and limitations in analysing trade-offs.    
     
• What is Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)? 
  • Decision making with the analytic hierarchy process by Thomas L Saaty (journal article, paid access)
    This paper, authored by AHP’s creator, provides an overview of the theory and mathematics behind AHP, a widely used multi-criteria analysis. The paper also gives examples of how AHP has been used in practice to understand and inform decision-making processes that involve trade-offs among multiple criteria. 
     
• Using AHP to make decisions:
  • What to Do? Let’s Think It Through! Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process to Make Decision
    This short article lays out basic steps and maths used by AHP in a very simple and easy-to-understand format targeted at youth. It's a fun read - enjoy! 
     
• Strengths and limitations of AHP: 
  • Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
    This 8-page leaflet provides an overview of key steps of AHP and the general use of AHP in the fields of environment, land use and sustainability. It also discusses its strengths and weaknesses. 

2. Application of AHP in understanding and supporting land-use decision-making

Through the video and reading materials you will learn about the wide application of AHP and how it can be used to understand and support land-use decision-making. The video also gives an example of how AHP has been utilised in the Sentinel project focusing on:

• Why AHP is chosen as a methodology
• Overall lessons drawn from the pros and cons of using AHP in understanding trade-offs in land-use decision-making by different types of landowner

2.1 Reading materials

2.1. a. Selected overview of AHP application in land-use decision-making: 

• Multi-criteria decision analysis for nature conservation: a review of 20 years of applications  
  This paper reviews the use of AHP in land-use decision-making that balances nature conservation objectives with other multiple and competing goals – such as economic growth and the needs of vulnerable communities. The paper shows that while following similar common steps, the detailed design of each step of MCDA can be tailored to suit research needs. It also discusses common pitfalls and lessons learnt. 
  
  Based on first-hand reviews of applying AHP:
   
  • The paper encourages use of MCDA to understand stakeholders’ values and concerns.
  • The paper notes that MCDA is not necessarily required to derive a specific decision (the process of which can be complicated) and can be used to simply explore how different stakeholders value different aspects of a decision. 
     
• Multi-criteria decision-making methods to address rural land allocation problems: a systematic review 
  This paper provides an overview on how MCDM has been used in land allocation problems. It has a useful summary and comparison of different MCDMs and shows how AHP is the most used and analysed tool in a range of land-use decision-making research. 
   
• A critical review of multi-criteria decision-making methods with special reference to forest management and planning (journal article, paid access)

2.1.b. Selected examples of how AHP is used to understand and analyse drivers of decision-making: 

• The case for a novel agroforestry system and cross-sectoral collaboration 
• Comprehensive criteria for biodiversity evaluation in conservation planning
• Expert panel assessment of attributes for natural variability benchmarks for biodiversity 
• Analysing the drivers of advanced sustainable manufacturing systems using AHP approach
• Analysing trade-offs in land-use decision-making using AHP: insights from a Zambia case study from the Sentinel project  

2.1.c. Selected examples of how AHP is used to support land-use decision-making: 

• An AHP-derived method for mapping the physical vulnerability of coastal areas at regional scales
• The use of AHP to incorporate stakeholder preferences into regional forest planning
• The use of AHP for stakeholder preference analysis: a case study from Kasane Forest Reserve, Botswana 
• Using stakeholder preferences to identify optional land-use configurations
• Integrating AHP and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for prioritising and planning conservation choices in Wales

3. The practical example of using AHP to understand and support land-use decision-making in New Zealand 

Through the video and reading materials you will learn how AHP was used by researchers in New Zealand to understand and support land-use decision-making focusing on:

• Why AHP was chosen as a methodology
• How it was applied
• Overall lessons on advantages and disadvantages of using AHP as a methodology in supporting land-use decision-making. 

3.1 Reading materials

3.1.a. Research findings brief: supporting complex decisions on land-use changes

The Our Land and Water National Science Challenge site provides an overview of the development and application of multi-criteria decision-making tools in New Zealand. A research brief can be downloaded from the site and highlights examples of how multi-criteria decision-making tools have been applied. 

3.1.b. Balancing the push and pull factors of land‑use change: a New Zealand case study 

This paper highlights how AHP was used with a range of land managers in New Zealand facing different opportunities and challenges. It shows how AHP results can be compared across land managers and provides examples of how results of the AHP process can be displayed. It also highlights how the tool can be used to facilitate discussion with land managers; in this case to help identify factors that may act as barriers or facilitators of change.  An extension of the analysis in this paper considers the findings of the AHP in terms of insights that are provided concerning the risk perceptions of land managers.

3.1.c. Challenges and opportunities for land-use transformation: insights from the Central Plains Water Scheme in New Zealand 

This paper highlights how AHP was applied to a specific land-use issue in New Zealand and what happens to land use in a region when a large-scale irrigation scheme is developed. As well as highlighting the quantitative results from applying AHP (in terms of the weight given to the domains and subdomains), the paper also illustrates how qualitative information can be collected through the process and how this can provide useful insights into factors that are shaping land-use decision-making. For example, it found that − in addition to profitability − the desire of land managers to simplify complex agricultural systems, their need for scale, their concerns over knowledge competition, their willingness to collaborate and the challenge brought about by ‘cultural path dependency’ are all important factors. 

 After going through all the materials above, have a go at testing  your knowledge by answering the following questions: 

• What is multi-criteria analysis? What is AHP? 
• How  can AHP be used to understand how land managers make decisions concerning land-use trade-offs? 
• What are the strength and limitations of using AHP to understand land-use trade-offs and support land-use decision-making?