Developing a multicriteria and multistakeholder decision making framework to support systemic strategies for climate adaptation using green infrastructure for stormwater management

Green infrastructure (GI) solutions enable low-impact development of urban landscapes while supporting adaptation and resilience related to climate change. However, the multitude of alternatives available enables combining them to customize the solutions to fit local conditions. In this context, a systemic and multicriterial approach is required. Systemic in terms of integrated GR analysis, as well as in terms of involving different actors. Multicriterial, in the sense it covers different perspectives to assess adaptation, resilience and sustainability. So, this study aims to develop a multicriteria-multiskakeholder decision-making framework to support the choice of GI strategies for climate adaptation and resilience focused on stormwater management. In terms of mathematical formulation, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used, as it enables comparing multiple GI strategies through a multicriteria analysis while allowing incorporation of weights or importance reflecting different stakeholders. The methodological steps comprise: case study selection, definition of scenarios combining different GI, selection of the criteria and respective indicators to assess resilience and adaptation performance, attribution weights for each criterion, aggregation of results, and ranking of the scenarios. The results indicated the suitability of the method for such a wicked problem like climate adaptation, enabling the comparison of different scenarios using a streamlined and practical framework that can be replicated in other contexts and adapted in terms of criteria, GI elements considered and criteria weights in order to reflect regional specificities as well as stakeholder priorities and demands. This framework showed the value of such a systemic and multicriterial approach as a promising way to support the definition of integrative adaptation strategies for stormwater urban infrastructure.