Method for combining societal and technical judgments in environmental decision making

A methodology was developed for environmental decision making that combines societal and technical judgments. Eight factors that characterized the major economic and environmental impacts of nuclear power plant sitings were identified. These factors were used to construct "mini-environmental impact statements" for six siting alternatives. The impact statements formed the core of a survey questionnaire administered to three groups of respondents. Data analysis produced estimates of the relative importance of each factor. A procedure is described for using these estimates of importance as weighting factors to be applied to techno-economic scores. These latter scores would be generated by technical experts and would represent the actual or anticipated impact of a plant siting upon the eight factors.