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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

2011

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Abstract

Use of participatory stakeholder engagement processes could be important to reduce the risk of potential conflicts in managing contaminated sites. Most stakeholder engagement techniques are qualitative in nature and require experienced facilitators. This study proposes a multicriteria involvement process to enhance transparency and stakeholder participation and applies it to a contaminated sediment management case study for Bergen Harbor, Norway. The suggested multicriteria involvement process builds on the quantitative principles of multicriteria decision analysis and also incorporates group interaction and learning through qualitative participatory methods. Three different advisory groups consisting of local residents, local stakeholders, and nonresident sediment experts were invited to participate in a stakeholder engagement process to provide consensual comparative advice on sediment remediation alternatives. In order for stakeholders or residents to be able to embrace a complex decision such as selection of remediation alternatives, the involvement process with lateral learning, combined with multicriteria decision analysis providing structure, robustness and transparent documentation was preferable. In addition, a multicriteria involvement process resulted in consistent ranking of remediation alternatives across residents, stakeholder, and experts, relative to individual intuitive ranking without the multicriteria involvement process.

Abstract

Agriculture contributes a significant portion of the nutrient supply to the environment, being to a large degree responsible for the eutrophication of inland waters and coastal zones. Agricultural practices, climatic conditions, topography and geological conditions are important factors in determining these losses. However, also hydrological flow processes and pathways play an important role in the nutrient and soil loss processes. This chapter presents the results of a comparison of the hydrology in three catchments, two of which are located in Norway and one in Poland.