Multi-criteria decision aid for nuclear emergency management: Problem structuring based on a stakeholders survey

Stakeholders' involvement in risk management and decision making has received increasing attention in the last years. In nuclear emergency management, decisions taken have firstly to deal with the radiological impact to people and environment. Multi-criteria decision aid offers a suitable methodological framework for risk-informed decision making, compatible with the democratic perspective. We argue that in order to be successful, the use of multi-criteria decision tools and methods has to be subject to a systematic interaction with the relevant stakeholders in all stages of the decision analysis, and especially in the problem structuring stage. The paper focuses on this process and illustrates its findings from a questionnaire conducted in the Belgian context and related to agricultural countermeasures for milk following a radioactive release to the environment. The points of view of the different stakeholders (decision makers, experts, production and processing sectors) are discussed and suggestions are given for incorporating this information into a decision-aid model.