Agenda

prof. Igor Linkov, Visiting professor DAIS

Abstract:
Summary of PhD Project Course led by Prof. Igor Linkov (US Army Corps of Engineers) Students: Pesce M., Al-Jawasreh R.I.M., Bommarito C., Calgaro L., Fogarin S., Russo E., Terzi S. Moderator: Prof. Antonio Marcomini, Ca’ Foscari University Sustainable solution for large cruise ships in Venice has been subject of controversy given significant economic benefits from tourism for the municipality and the cruise operators, while generating a suite of social and environmental impacts. Since the current location requiring ships to go through environmentally sensitive and historically important Venice lagoon contradicts environmental laws, several alternative locations have been proposed, but all has significant environmental impacts and varying degrees of social and economic viability. Discussion of the best alternative is thus very controversial since under situation of high uncertainty and significant variability in impacts tradeoffs in this solution space are difficult to make and process of selecting the best alternative is stalled at political level. A group of Graduate Students from Ca’ Foscari University under supervision of Prof. Igor Linkov of Carnegie Mellon University and the US Army Corps of Engineers studied feasibility of using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for comparative evaluation of different alternatives for solving problem of cruise ships in Venice. Four alternatives were considered: i) the dredging of the Contorta canal; ii) the construction of a new passenger terminal in Porto Marghera; iii) the construction of a docking site at the inlet of Lido – Punta Sabbioni; iv) and the conversion of the port of San Leonardo. MCDA model was developed by developing sub-criteria and metrics for three main sustainability criteria (Environmental, Economic and Social) and integrating the best available scientific data for scoring alternatives under the developed set of metrics. Interviews with local stakeholders were conducted to develop profiles of values that different stakeholder place on the main evaluation cri teria. As the result, utility of 4 proposed alternatives were determined for different stakeholders. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to assess robustness of MCDA model recommendation and potential value of collecting more information to provide a better decision support. Even though this presentation is focused on a strawman approach to solving complex and controversial problem, we believe that the use of MCDA techniques would allow decision makers to integrate both qualitative and quantitative information from different sources (e.g. technical documentation or strategic plans), and help them to frame the problem of cruise ships in Venice within the context of sustainability and to evaluate the tradeoffs between the identified multiple criteria.