A decision support system for conflict analysis on environmental effects of energy conversion

Environmental aspects play an important role in the complex decision process of energy production. In this article we describe an Environmental Assessment System (EASY) that functions as a decision support system to actors or groups of actors involved in the decision process. The system contains two dimensions: one for information processing and one for evaluation. The information processing dimension deals with the representation of real world phenomena by means of impact analysis (cause-effect chains). The evaluation dimension deals with evaluation of a set of alternatives at each level of the cause and effect chain. The potentials for use of EASY in situations of conflict between (groups of) decision makers are discussed by means of two examples.