Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method
Prioritizing climate adaptation actions is often made difficult by stakeholders and decision-makers having multiple objectives, some of which may be competing. Transparent, transferable, and objective methods are needed to assess and weight different objectives for complex decisions with multiple in...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Climate Risk Management |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212096324000044 |
| _version_ | 1797292995659169792 |
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| author | Abu SMG Kibria Erin Seekamp Xiao Xiao Soupy Dalyander Mitchell Eaton |
| author_facet | Abu SMG Kibria Erin Seekamp Xiao Xiao Soupy Dalyander Mitchell Eaton |
| author_sort | Abu SMG Kibria |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Prioritizing climate adaptation actions is often made difficult by stakeholders and decision-makers having multiple objectives, some of which may be competing. Transparent, transferable, and objective methods are needed to assess and weight different objectives for complex decisions with multiple interests. In this study, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to examine priorities in managing cultural resources in the face of climate change at Cape Lookout National Seashore on the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States. In this process, we conducted facilitated discussion sessions with the selected stakeholder representatives to elicit a comprehensive list of management objectives. Objectives were then merged into three categories: 1) Maximize retention of historic character and condition (HCC); 2) Foster heritage awareness (HA); and 3) Maximize financial benefits (FB). We facilitated two AHP exercise sessions, both individually and in groups, to seek consensus on the relative importance of the objectives. The AHP process created a space for stakeholders (government agencies and local citizens) to consider and present arguments that we used to contextualize their trade-offs between the objectives. The stakeholders' top priority was to maximize the HCC. This objective was prioritized more than HA and FB in the individual trade-off choices, while HA was given nearly equal priority to FB. The consensus priority vectors of two management objectives (HCC and HA) differ significantly from FB, but the difference between HCC and HA is slight and not statistically different. FB and HA had larger changes in consensus priority vectors among the three objectives relative to individual priority vectors. For HCC, the difference between individual and consensus priority vectors was the smallest and nearly equal. Moreover, very high levels of consistency were found in consensus priority trade-off discussions and AHP application. Our research highlights the advantage of using a two-step AHP process in climate adaptation planning of vulnerable resources to enhance robustness in decision making. Coupling this approach with future efforts to develop management priorities would help estimate indices to determine the order in which adaptation treatments are applied to vulnerable cultural resources. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T20:05:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-de7e84bdc3ab4f2abdbf2abce764757b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2212-0963 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T20:05:32Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Climate Risk Management |
| spelling | doaj.art-de7e84bdc3ab4f2abdbf2abce764757b2024-02-28T05:13:21ZengElsevierClimate Risk Management2212-09632024-01-0143100587Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP methodAbu SMG Kibria0Erin Seekamp1Xiao Xiao2Soupy Dalyander3Mitchell Eaton4College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University, 2820 Faucette Dr, Raleigh, NC 27695, United States; Corresponding author.Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management, College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, United StatesSchool of Community Resources and Development, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USAThe Water Institute of the Gulf, Center for Coastal and Deltaic Studies Building, 1110 River Road S., Suite 200, Baton Rouge, LA 70802, United StatesU.S. Geological Survey, Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, United States; Department of Applied Ecology, 127 David Clark Labs, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7617, United StatesPrioritizing climate adaptation actions is often made difficult by stakeholders and decision-makers having multiple objectives, some of which may be competing. Transparent, transferable, and objective methods are needed to assess and weight different objectives for complex decisions with multiple interests. In this study, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to examine priorities in managing cultural resources in the face of climate change at Cape Lookout National Seashore on the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States. In this process, we conducted facilitated discussion sessions with the selected stakeholder representatives to elicit a comprehensive list of management objectives. Objectives were then merged into three categories: 1) Maximize retention of historic character and condition (HCC); 2) Foster heritage awareness (HA); and 3) Maximize financial benefits (FB). We facilitated two AHP exercise sessions, both individually and in groups, to seek consensus on the relative importance of the objectives. The AHP process created a space for stakeholders (government agencies and local citizens) to consider and present arguments that we used to contextualize their trade-offs between the objectives. The stakeholders' top priority was to maximize the HCC. This objective was prioritized more than HA and FB in the individual trade-off choices, while HA was given nearly equal priority to FB. The consensus priority vectors of two management objectives (HCC and HA) differ significantly from FB, but the difference between HCC and HA is slight and not statistically different. FB and HA had larger changes in consensus priority vectors among the three objectives relative to individual priority vectors. For HCC, the difference between individual and consensus priority vectors was the smallest and nearly equal. Moreover, very high levels of consistency were found in consensus priority trade-off discussions and AHP application. Our research highlights the advantage of using a two-step AHP process in climate adaptation planning of vulnerable resources to enhance robustness in decision making. Coupling this approach with future efforts to develop management priorities would help estimate indices to determine the order in which adaptation treatments are applied to vulnerable cultural resources.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212096324000044 |
| spellingShingle | Abu SMG Kibria Erin Seekamp Xiao Xiao Soupy Dalyander Mitchell Eaton Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method Climate Risk Management |
| title | Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method |
| title_full | Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method |
| title_fullStr | Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method |
| title_full_unstemmed | Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method |
| title_short | Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method |
| title_sort | multi criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the atlantic coast of the southeastern united states application of ahp method |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212096324000044 |
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