Environmental-economic decision-making in lowland irrigated agriculture using multi-criteria analysis techniques

The continuing debate on sustainability has raised wide concerns towards integration of environmental and eco; nomic aspects into the development decision-making process. This paper develops a framework for environmental-economic decision making that includes the environmental and economic sustainability criteria, and local people's preferences in the context of a lowland irrigated agriculture system using multi-criteria decision-making techniques. Several criteria, such as land capability/suitability, energy input/output ratio, water demand and environmental costs, are considered as environmental sustainability criteria. Economic sustainability is measured from farmers': governments and societal viewpoints using extended cost-benefit analysis. The Geographic Information System (GIS) technique has been used to evaluate spatial sustainability criteria. The involvement of local people at various levels of the decision- making process is emphasized and their opinions are sought in the decision-making process using a two-stage field survey. The results of the multi-criteria analysis combining both environmental and economic sustainability criteria are discussed, and economic incentives for sustainable intensification of lowland irrigated agriculture are outlined. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.