MULTIPLE OBJECTIVES UNDER UNCERTAINTY - ILLUSTRATIVE APPLICATION OF PROTRADE

A decision making method labeled Protrade has been developed to account for both multiple objectives and uncertainty aspects. This method is applied to the case study of the Black Mesa Region in Northern Arizona which is being strip mined for coal. One important concern in large‐scale surface mining is the reclamation of mine spoils to bring about beneficial land uses while observing economic, social, environmental, and legal constraints. Protrade considers a set of linear objective functions with random parameters, subject to a set of physical constraints; the preferences of the decision maker are articulated in a progressive manner, and alternative solutions are generated. Nonlinear deterministic equivalents are introduced to account for uncertainty in some of the parameters involved. While no final policy recommendations are made, this illustration of Protrade is carried out to investigate the potential of the method for trading off multiple objectives and measures of uncertainty in water and other natural resource system design problems. Copyright 1979 by the American Geophysical Union.