Combining AHP and SMARTER in forestry decision making

Abstract

© 2019, Institute of Forestry LAMMC. All rights reserved. This paper describes the process of identifying the most multi-functional forest stand using the multi-criteria methods of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and simple multi-attribute rating technique exploiting ranks (SMARTER) with the loss function approach (LFA) as the aggregation method. The procedure was demonstrated on four stands in the Rila Monastery forest (Bulgaria) and involved forestry experts who had not previously been acquainted with multi-criteria (MC) methodologies. The selection of an appropriate decision support method was therefore crucial. AHP and SMARTER are shown to be convenient methods for this analysis, and a ranking of forest stands is provided at the end of the decision-making process. However, this paper also discusses other possibilities of combining MC methods in making forestry decisions. A combination of different methods establishes a more flexible environment to work in, especially when decision makers come from differing backgrounds or have more or less advanced experience with MC methods.