Taking a closer look at multiple criteria analysis and economic evaluation

Multiple criteria analysis (MCA) has been widely applied within the field of natural resource management since the 1970s. During this period MCA has undergone considerable methodological advancement with numerous methods for capturing decision maker preferences, ranking or scoring decision options, handling uncertainty and presenting results. This paper explores the role of MCA within the economist’s evaluation toolkit, which also contains benefit cost analysis (BCA), cost effectiveness analysis (CEA) and cost utility analysis (CUA). A process for selecting an appropriate evaluation tool is proposed, which is partly dependent on the extent to which environmental goods can be valued in monetary units.