title: Emerging Technologies for Environmental Remediation: Integrating Data and Judgment.
abstract: Emerging technologies present significant challenges to researchers, decision-makers, industry professionals, and other stakeholder groups due to the lack of quantitative risk, benefit, and cost data associated with their use. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) can support early decisions for emerging technologies when data is too sparse or uncertain for traditional risk assessment. It does this by integrating expert judgment with available quantitative and qualitative inputs across multiple criteria to provide relative technology scores. Here, an MCDA framework provides preliminary insights on the suitability of emerging technologies for environmental remediation by comparing nanotechnology and synthetic biology to conventional remediation methods. Subject matter experts provided judgments regarding the importance of criteria used in the evaluations and scored the technologies with respect to those criteria. The results indicate that synthetic biology may be preferred over nanotechnology and conventional methods for high expected benefits and low deployment costs but that conventional technology may be preferred over emerging technologies for reduced risks and development costs. In the absence of field data regarding the risks, benefits, and costs of emerging technologies, structuring evidence-based expert judgment through a weighted hierarchy of topical questions may be helpful to inform preliminary risk governance and guide emerging technology development and policy.
authors.affiliation: Environmental Laboratory, Engineer Research and Development Center, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 696 Virginia Road, Concord, Massachusetts 01742, United States.
authors.forename: Matthew E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Bates
authors.affiliation: RTI International, 3040 East Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, United States.
authors.forename: Khara D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Grieger
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, University of Michigan , 1415 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States.
authors.forename: Benjamin D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Trump
authors.affiliation: College of Management, University of Massachusetts Boston , 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125, United States.
authors.forename: Jeffrey M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Keisler
authors.affiliation: Contractor to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, SOL Engineering Services, 696 Virginia Road, Concord, Massachusetts 01742, United States.
authors.forename: Kenton J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Plourde
authors.affiliation: Environmental Laboratory, Engineer Research and Development Center, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 696 Virginia Road, Concord, Massachusetts 01742, United States.
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Linkov
mesh_terms: D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D018570:Risk Assessment