SBIR Phase I: An Issue Development, Exploration and Analysis System (IDEA) to Support Group-Based Environmental Decision-Making for Brownfields Redevelopment

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This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project from Geo Choice Inc. will determine the merit and feasibility of a computer-based issue development, exploration, and analysis system (IDEAS), a software tool to support brownfields redevelopment decision-making. Brownfields are typically urban areas that are currently abandoned and unattractive for redevelopment because of the implications of environmental contamination from past industrial activities. To identify and select the areas to clean up, decision-makers must address many issues which have environmental, health, social, and economic dimensions. The problem is further complicated by the amount of information that must be considered, and the number of people involved in the decision process that leads to `clean` sites. Spatial decision support systems (SDSS) are a relatively new technology, based on geographic information systems, that are useful for weighting criteria and selecting alternatives; however, they are not effective for group-based problem structuring to generate these criteria and alternatives. IDEAS technology will extend current SDSS software capabilities to help groups work together to define and structure geographic problems and solutions. With brownfield sites, numbering at least in the tens of thousands, effectively removed from the market, the supply of amenable to development properties is curtailed. To spur redevelopment, the federal government has taken the lead to provide programs and funding to bring the stakeholders together, at the local level, to address these problems creatively. The development, exploration and analysis system (IDEAS) proposed here would be valuable to decision makers involved in brownfield projects, enhancing the shared understanding of participants at all stages of decision-making. Other possible applications include any locational decision-making involving multiple criteria and alternatives such as environmental impact assessment, transportation improvement, health-care resource allocation, and commercial real-estate site selection.