Systems engineering approaches to sustainable environmental management

拟议研究的总体目标是发展系统工程方法，能够在整个系统框架内解释利益攸关方相互冲突的价值体系，以便作出明智的决策，以可持续的方式解决社会、技术和环境之间的紧迫环境问题。一个基本的激励目标是设计理论上合理的系统工程方法，并构建相应的实施算法，使其能够作为灵活的决策支持系统运行，以应对社会面临的主要环境问题的战略决策方面，如水污染、淡水短缺和全球变暖。这项研究可以方便地细分为五个相互关联的部分。研究的第一部分是确定如何扩展复杂适应系统理论的思想，以便为明智的工程决策提供一个稳定的平台，该平台是自适应的和综合的，以考虑系统交互系统的实时涌现特性。第二个组成部分是对价值系统的系统研究，它构成了任何类型的决策模型中最关键的部分，因为它们决定了决策者个人的行为和与他人的互动。第三，对冲突解决图模型的研究将使战略决策中的竞争和合作方面得到有效的解决。在确定特定环境争端的潜在战略解决方案之后，将制定讨价还价的战术多标准决策分析(MCDA)方法，以便在利益攸关方之间进行详细的权衡，以得出针对特定问题的明确的可持续解决方案。将研究将物体归类为预定义组的新的MCDA方法，例如根据其易受气候变化影响的程度对区域进行分类。第五，将通过可持续环境管理的实际应用来开发、测试和加强上述系统工程方法。

The overarching objective of the proposed research is to develop systems engineering methodologies which can account for the conflicting value systems of stakeholders within an overall system of systems framework to informed decision making, for sustainably addressing pressing environmental problems lying at the interface of society, technology and the environment. An underlying motivating goal is to design theoretically sound systems engineering methodologies and to construct accompanying implementation algorithms to permit them to be operationalized as flexible decision support systems for tackling, often in real time, the strategic decision making aspects of major environmental problems facing society, such as water pollution, fresh water shortages, and global warming. The research can be conveniently subdivided into five interconnected components. The first part of the research is to identify how ideas from complex adaptive systems theory can be expanded in order to provide a stable platform for informed engineering decision making which is adaptive and integrative to account for real-time emergent properties of interacting systems of systems. The second component is the systematic study of value systems, which form the most crucial part of any type of decision model, since they dictate how decision makers individually behave and interact with others. Thirdly, research on the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution will permit the competitive and cooperative aspects of strategic decision making to be effectively addressed. Subsequent to determining potential strategic resolutions to a given environmental dispute, tactical Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) approaches to bargaining will be developed for carrying out detailed trade-offs among stakeholders to arrive at well-defined sustainable solutions to a specific problem. New MCDA approaches for the categorization of objects into predefined groups, such as the classification of regions according to the level of their vulnerability to climate change, will be investigated. Fifthly, the aforementioned systems engineering methodologies will be developed, tested and enhanced via real world applications in sustainable environmental management.