Modeling the public as a stakeholder in environmental risk decision making

A methodology to provide a structured approach for including multiple stakeholders in risk-based decision-making in environmental restoration is developed. The public is included along with a site owner and regulatory agency as stakeholders in the methodology. Public stakeholder concerns are addressed by expanding the traditional risk assessment process to be more inclusive of risk attributes of concern to the public. The methodology treats stakeholder involvement as the conditional interaction of stakeholder decisions and influences. Studies in risk perception are used to establish the objectives of the public for decision analysis in regards to environmental risk. A conditional influence diagram is used to model and evaluate the decisions and their influence on objectives. The methodology is demonstrated with a conditional influence diagram modeling an actual groundwater contamination problem