Environmental and socio-economic evaluation of four ... - Springer Link

# Springer 2005

Environmental Modeling and Assessment (2006) 11: 59–68 DOI: 10.1007/s10666-005-9022-6

Environmental and socio-economic evaluation of four different sites for a domestic airport ´ gu´st þorgeirssonb Ju´lı´us So´lnesa,* and A a

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Iceland, Hjardarhagi 2-6, 107, Reykjavik, Iceland E-mail: [email protected] b University of Iceland, 107, Reykjavik, Iceland E-mail: [email protected]

During World War II, a military airport was built inside the city of Reykjavik. This airport then became the centre of domestic aviation for the whole country. Today, 50 years later, the airport tract has become valuable for urban development. The city government therefore wants the airport relocated. Four different sites have been considered. The first alternative is to maintain the airport in the same place. A second alternative is based on reclaiming land alongside the present airport. A third possible site is in a rugged lava field south of Reykjavik, and the fourth alternative is to move the domestic traffic to Keflavik International Airport about 60 km away. The relocation has become a hot issue in the country. The people living in the countryside want to keep the airport in the same place. On the other hand, people living in Reykjavik see the airport land as valuable potential for urban development close to the city centre. To approach this debate in an orderly fashion, the four sites have been studied from an environmental and socio-economic point of view. The four alternatives are classified by four different categories: (1) economy and capital investment, (2) social impacts, (3) direct environmental consequences, and (4) public safety. Firstly, the last three categories were evaluated and weighted, and all four alternatives graded according to their environmental quality. Secondly, using the results of a separate cost-effectiveness study, a Pareto optimality solution is suggested. Finally, sensitivity analysis was carried out to investigate how the Benvironmental^ factors through their variation can influence the final selection. Keywords: airport relocation, environmental evaluation, quality indexing, Pareto optimality solutions, robust planning

1. Introduction In World War II, a military airport was built inside the city of Reykjavik. After the war, the airport became the centre of domestic aviation and has since then served as the main domestic airport for the whole country. Today, half a century later, the land under the airport has become quite valuable and sought after for urban development. The city government therefore wants to have the airport relocated although many groups within the country oppose such a move, mostly because of the convenience of having an airport close to the city centre of Reykjavik. Four different sites have been considered for a new domestic airport. The first alternative is to maintain the airport in the same place but reduce its area considerably by shortening the main runway and discard two runways that are rarely used. This would free up large area of land close to the city centre for urban development. A second alternative is based on reclaiming land in the bay alongside the present airport, in the so-called Skerjafjord, which is an inlet southwest of the main Seltjarnarnes peninsula. This site is an attractive option because the current air terminal buildings could still be used, but the reclamation effort would be very costly and environmental consequences quite significant. A third possible site is in a flat, rugged lava field just south of the Reykjavik area, and the fourth alternative is to simply move * Corresponding author.

the domestic air traffic to Keflavik International Airport, which is about 60 km from the centre of Reykjavik. These alternative sites are shown in figure 1, in which the four different sites are marked as follows:

Present Reykjavik Airport (RVA) Y unchanged Reykjavik Lo¨ngusker Airport (RLA) Y landfill Hvassahraun Airport (HHA) Y rugged lava field Keflavik International Airport (KIA) The domestic airport relocation has become a hotly debated issue in the country. The discussion has been unfocussed and sometimes highly emotional. The people living outside the capital region, who have to run frequent errands to the capital, have a vested interest in keeping the airport in the same place in order not to prolong their travel time. The people living in Reykjavik, on the other hand, tend see the land under the airport as valuable potential for urban development, yielding new residential areas close to the present city centre. Some groups claim that the best solution is to move the airport to the Keflavik International Airport about 60 km away and construct a rapid transit line, a railway or monorail, between the city centre and the international airport, although the cost would be huge. In order to approach this debate in a logical and orderly fashion, the four sites have been studied from an environ-

60

J. So´lnes and A´. þorgeirsson / Environmental and socio-economic evaluation of four different sites for a domestic airport

Reykjavík RVA RLA

Keflavík KIA

HHA

Hafnir

Grindavík

Figure 1. Four different sites for a domestic airport.

mental and socio-economic point of view. The four alternatives are classified and defined according to four different criteria: (1) economy and capital investment; (2) social impacts, especially in terms of land use; (3) environmental consequences, such as noise, pollution and ecological impacts; and (4) public safety and convenience. The various environmental and socio-economic factors are thus identified and evaluated for each alternative. To carry out a comparison assessment of the various factors and attain their weights, various outside interest groups and experts were consulted, following the recommendations of Sondheim [1]. The evaluation of the alternatives themselves, however, should be based on social and political views as offered by the public and local government, rather than be based solely on technological and scientific expertise. Due to the limited time and funding available for this study, it was decided to ask a few recognised experts to evaluate the environmental factors and simultaneously ask all councillors of the City of Reykjavik to evaluate or rather prioritise the categories. The results from this exercise were then transformed to a scale of environmental quality and used to calculate the overall environmental quality index of each alternative [2]. The following main Benvironmental factors^ were considered:1

Viability and economic impacts (EI) Social impacts (SI) Consequences for nature and natural habitats (CN) Safety concerns (SC) Whereas the evaluation of the environmental factors by the three participating experts yielded reasonable results, 0

In the following, environmental factors within quotation marks are considered to cover socio-economic factors as well.

the same cannot be said about the priority or weighting of the above categories, which was referred to the city councillors. Only six councillors out of 25 turned in the questionnaire and one requested more information without answering. Thus the reply rate (24%) was not sufficient for attaching great significance to the result. This demonstrates the kind of obstacles often encountered in environmental evaluation and analysis. Unfortunately, time did not allow for a second attempt. In order to obtain proper category weights, the results of the experts’ evaluations were used together with some judgement and analysis provided by the authors, whereas the results from the councillors’ questionnaire were discarded. Thus a compromise regarding the importance of the above categories was reached. In the following, the four alternative sites are briefly described, and the assessment of their social, economic and environmental consequences provided. Weighting of the different environmental factors is carried out by applying the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology. An average environmental quality index (EQI) for each of the project alternatives is then calculated by applying the multi-attribute utility theory as defined, for instance, by Bisset [3]. The EQI is therefore calculated as the weighted sum of all environmental factors, which gives an estimate of the overall environmental impact of each alternative [15]. To evaluate the viability of each alternative in terms of EQI and total present costs, a Pareto optimality plot is presented [4]. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was also performed to investigate the influence of different environmental factors on the results. Actually, it is found that the EQI is very sensitive to the weights associated with each category of environmental factors. This fact enables the evaluation of the quality of each alternative if certain environmental issues associated with the alternative are addressed by applying proper mitigating measures. Moreover, it is also possible to set Bred^ flags for certain


environmental factors, where lower quality values are simply unacceptable. It can be said that the methodologies applied are both well known and straightforward. The presentation here could therefore be interpreted as being more of a pedagogical nature rather than offering a new theoretical approach. Nevertheless, application of these methods for environmental impact assessment and decision making is relatively new, and we hope that our efforts can shed some light on the various problems encountered in environmental modelling when applying such methods. 2. The four sites The four different sites being considered are very different from every viewpoint. A brief description of the sites is presented as follows. 2.1. Reykjavik Airport (RVA) The old airport in Reykjavik is located in a comparatively flat marshland besides the university campus and only a couple of kilometres away from the city centre. The airport was built by British occupation forces during World War II and now requires heavy maintenance and even reconstruction of some of the runways. The airport terminal is in an old derelict building. Existing plans for building of a new terminal have been postponed year after year, perhaps due to the uncertainty regarding the future of the airport. Many civil groups have pressed for relocation of the airport, claiming that the land occupied by the airport is invaluable in terms of possible and much-needed urban development close to the city centre. However, the other viewpoint is very strong, namely that proximity to the seat of government and main national institutions is of paramount importance to the populace living outside the capital region. Before the municipal elections of 2001, the City Council of Reykjavik organised a public vote about the future of the airport. Unfortunately, only about 30% of the voters bothered to take part and the outcome was a perfect draw (50% for and 50% against relocation). Other viewpoints such as the enormous investment costs associated with building a completely new airport or a rapid transit system, should the airport be relocated to Keflavik International Airport, have been presented. Also, one of the evaluation experts pointed out that the old airport had protected a large tract of land from being filled up with Bugly^ buildings. The airport area is a wide open space with considerable bird life, harmonising well with the adjoining stretch of green area from the city centre. 2.2. Reykjavik Lo¨ngusker Airport (RLA) The idea of reclaiming land for a new airport in Skerjafjo¨rður, close by the existing airport is not new. Many people have forwarded such ideas during the past

61

few decades. A recent documentary film produced by one of Iceland’s prominent film directors showed computeraided sequences of take-off and landings at a fictitious airport in this location in a very advantageous light. Moreover, the freed-up land from the old airport was shown with clusters of modern high-rise buildings together with parks and service areas. The landfill cost would not be unreasonable as the Skerjafjo¨rður bay is shallow and full of reefs (Lo¨ngusker). Flight approaches to an airfield in this place are much better than for the present airport, which has the main approach route over the City Centre and the Parliament building, which has often been used as an argument for its relocation. In the new location, even mediumsize jet aircraft could be accommodated allowing for some international service. Most of the present infrastructure pertaining to the present airport could be used for this new location. The close by Bflotel^ (Hotel Loftleiðir fly hotel) and the flight control tower of the Aviation Administration will serve the new airport as well as the present one. A new terminal building could be erected according to present plans with an access ramp to the reclaimed site. The negative consequences, however, are considerable. The environmental impact on the biosphere of the Skerjafjo¨rður inlet will be huge. The cost of reclaiming the land for the airport will be high, rendering this solution rather expensive. Finally, it has been pointed out that the ocean-type environment could cause all kind of troubles such as icing, corrosion and heavy maintenance of aircraft. 2.3. Hvassahraun Airport (HHA) Proposals for building an airport in Hvassahraun, a rugged lava field about 20 km from the Reykjavik City Centre on the way to Keflavik International Airport, have been studied in connection with moving training flights from the present Reykjavik Airport to a new location [5]. The area is convenient for building an airport in the sense that it is a kind of a flat no-man’s land about 40Y50 m above sea level close to the coastline. Flight approaches are reasonably good with a couple of low mountaintops protruding slightly above the hindrance surface, which can easily be avoided. There has been some controversy over prevailing winds and weather conditions at this site. Many aviators have complained that the site is unfavourable in this respect although it is difficult to see the difference from the nearby Keflavik International Airport, which has reasonably good weather conditions. Some pundits claim that this has to do with the Icelandic name (Hvassahraun), which can both mean pointed edge lava and windy lava. Building an airfield in this location will have considerable environmental consequences as the terrain is untouched since an eruption created it over 1100 years ago. There is little vegetation in this area, mostly moss and lichen on the lava surface that will be compacted with the lava during construction of the runways. The construction costs for the runways are reasonable, the lava being good support material and easy to work with, but of course

62


completely new ground structures and facilities will be needed. Travel times to and from the airport will be considerably increased, except for Hafnarfjo¨rður, one of the peripheral towns of the Capital Region. Although the main road from Hafnarfjo¨rður to Keflavı´k International Airport is presently being rebuilt as a four-lane motorway, traffic from Reykjavik proper will still be very slow. This site would not warrant any further rapid transit development. It can therefore be expected that there would be considerable increase in traffic accidents caused by traffic for the new airport.

expected accessibility improvement, is the projected extension of the main road to Keflavik to a four-lane motor highway. This would cut travel times from about 50 min to about 30 min, which is still far more than people are used to for the present airport. The road to Keflavik has always been accident prone, which has to be taken into consideration. The four-lane highway should be safer, but higher traffic accident risk than for the other alternatives can not be discarded. Finally, environmental impacts will be minimal as very little construction of new facilities will take place.

2.4. Keflavik International Airport (KIA) The Keflavik International Airport also dates back to World War II. However, it has been expanded and reconstructed many times since then as it both serves as the main international airport for the country and also as a military airport base for a NATO outpost in the North Atlantic under special agreement between the USA and Icelandic governments. In 1987, a new modern air terminal building was inaugurated, replacing the old World War II barracks. Although the new terminal constituted a revolution in comparison with the old facilities, it soon became too small and with the Schengen border control treaty, to which Iceland is a party, a large extension of the terminal building was required. In many aspects, the international airport is an attractive solution for domestic aviation as well. Airport maintenance is good and its utility factor is very high as it has ample gear to cope with foul weather conditions. However, it is foreseen that an additional domestic terminal building would be required as it would be close to impossible to separate international from domestic traffic in the existing facilities. The negative aspect is the increased travel times for domestic passengers. Some people claim that moving the domestic airport to Keflavik would be a death warrant for domestic aviation in its present form. Other people have countered that this could be solved by building a rapid transit system in the form of an elevated railway between Reykjavik and Keflavik, Studies of such transit systems have shown, however, that the cost would be prohibitive. The only

Safety

3. Evaluation of the four alternatives The four different sites are very different regarding the environmental consequences and socio-economic implications. Comparing the four different proposals, it becomes obvious that the difficulty is in selecting appropriate environmental factors. This is related to scoping in the EIA process and is often relegated to expert panels [6]. The main topics for evaluation are Bsafety,^ Bsocial impacts^ and Benvironmental impacts,^ the last topic being defined in the narrow sense. The economics and viability of each alternative are considered separately. Regarding the technical factors, it is assumed that in each case the best possible technical solution is selected and the profitability of the alternative thus ensured, although this is by no means certain when political interference is considered. For the following discussion, the technical factors will be discarded. In figure 2, hierarchical representation of the decision-making process for selecting the best alternative site is shown. Only the first two hierarchical levels are depicted. At the First, Second and Third hierarchy levels, the following factors are estimated:

Safety Safety against ground damage due to air accidents Safety of airline passengers against road traffic accidents Ground damage due to air accidents Road traffic accidents

Reykjavik Domestic Airport Aims - Policy

Social Impacts

Regional planning changes

RVA

RLA

Other noteworthy land use Level of service HHA

Environmental impacts

Noise/pollution Visual effects Impact of ground structures on the biosphere Impact of aviation on the biosphere

Figure 2. BEnvironmental^ factors at different levels.

KIA


63

Table 1 A differential evaluation scale for scores and weights. Score

Interpretation of importance of first level entries

Interpretation of score of environmental factors

Without any importance Of very little importance Of average importance Important Very important Highest priority

Poor result, not acceptable Poor result Mediocre result Acceptable result Good result Excellent result

1Y2 2Y3 4Y5 5Y7 7Y8 8Y9

Social Impacts Impact of the alternative on existing regional planning Other feasible land utilisation (other than for an airport) Level of service Coefficient of utilisation, i.e., expected number of days during which the airport stays open due to favourable weather conditions divided by 365 days Distance to airport from the centre of gravity of the Capital Region Environmental Impacts Noise and other pollution impact on residential areas Impact of aviation on the natural environment (not on people) Impact of airport structures (buildings, runways, etc.) on the natural environment (not on people) Visual impact Three different experts were consulted and asked to evaluate the above factors for each alternative. They included a planning architect from the State Planning Institute, the Deputy Director of the Icelandic Civil Aviation Administration and a Professor of biology from the University of Iceland. The experts were asked to evaluate each factor and subfactor on a simple differential comparison scale shown in table 1. It is noteworthy that some experts were dissatisfied with this scale, pointing out that the negative end of the scale needs room for more precise evaluation [16]. There is an obvious discontinuity of the scale as the range 3Y4 is missing. The negative end of the scale could therefore easily be widened.

3.1. Evaluation of the weights of first level entries As already noted, the query results of city councillors were incomplete in the sense that the answer rate was too low. Nevertheless, it was possible to calculate the appropriate First Level category weights based on the geometrical mean values, by first removing the economic feasibility weights. This gave the following result: Safety, w1 = 0.34; Social Impact, w2 = 0.36; Environmental Impacts, w3 = 0.30. One cannot help but wonder why the

councillors did not put more weight on the safety of airports. Apparently, social concerns carry more weight with the councillors. In an earlier relocation study carried out by the Institute for Economic Studies of the University of Iceland [7], an extensive discussion about the safety issues and accident risk is presented. Emphasis is put on increased accident risk with longer access routes and the risk of having the present airport practically within the city centre. In the conclusions of this report, it is stated that human casualties and injuries can be very considerable and thus be decisive for the evaluation of the alternatives. However, it is also stated that loss of human life on the ground due to aircraft crash is negligible but considerable losses are to be expected from road accidents. After some deliberations, it was decided to have the two authors and one collaborator fill in an AHP comparison matrix for the weights, independently from one and another. The entries in the 4 4 dimensional AHP matrix are the safety, economic, social and environmental weights. Each evaluator fills in his importance estimate according to the scale provided in table 1, to fulfil the AHP conditions for each entry aij (aij = 1/aji, aii = 1.0, aik I akj = aij). After normalising the matrices such that the sum of each column is 1.0 and taking the row average, an estimate of the best value for the weights is obtained. This gave very different results from those of the councillors, as presented in table 2. Obviously, it is always difficult to provide impartial and consistent comparison values for a problem involving the complexity of Benvironmental^ factors like in the present case. For instance, one person may be an Benvironmentalist^ and overemphasize nature conservation in comparison with other factors. Another person is economically minded and will have a tendency to prioritize economic factors at the cost of environmental ones. This is well known, and no two individuals will make the same decision regarding comparison values. One solution is to set up a broad panel of experts and have them reach a consensus regarding the comparison values and scores. As has been discussed by Saaty [8], this is fraught with all kinds of problems related to consensus reaching and dominant personalities. The Delphi method tries to avoid this by having the individual experts work independently of each other and let the co-ordinator form a

64

J. So´lnes and A´. þorgeirsson / Environmental and socio-economic evaluation of four different sites for a domestic airport Table 2 Evaluation results for the weights of the four first level categories.

Weights, wi Safety Economic impacts Social impacts Environmental impacts Sum

City council representatives

Evaluator 1

Evaluator 2

Evaluator 3

Average weight

Average weight

0.252 0.250 0.271 0.227 1

0.555 0.092 0.164 0.189 1

0.660 0.060 0.140 0.140 1

0.500 0.250 0.125 0.125 1

0.572 0.134 0.143 0.151 1

0.660 0.000 0.165 0.175 1

for the evaluation and inexperience in carrying out evaluation of this kind. The scores can therefore only be taken as indicative because they are not supported by extensive research material but rather based on qualitative approach and intuition of the experts. The scores are given in table 3.

final consensus [9]. An interesting discussion of the general problems in decision making in the EIA process is found in an earlier paper by Sondheim [1]. It is clear from the results in table 2 that the councillors have a completely different idea of the importance of safety in comparison to, say, the social impacts, which can perhaps be explained by their political background. The professional evaluators came up with more reasonable results. After some discussion, it was therefore decided to discard the weights obtained from the query of the councillors and use the average values for the weights given by the three evaluators.

4. Environmental comparison of the different alternatives Treating the Benvironmental^ factors separately from the economic aspects, the environmental quality index EQI of each alternative was calculated. EQI is defined in the usual manner as the weighted sum of values of all environmental factors converted into utility functions [3]. Instead of defining a linear utility function Ui(xi), which assumes values in the range 0Y10 for each environmental factor, the scores, already obtained (table 3), were used directly. The weights wi according to the importance of each environmental factor were taken from table 2, and the

3.2. Evaluation of the scores for Second and Third Level entries As already noted, experts associated with the different issues at hand agreed to assist with the evaluation of the scores for the Second and Third Level factors, using the differential scale in table 1. A weakness of this approach was manifested by the little time allotted to each individual

Table 3 Final scores for the second and third level factors. Airport

Weights

RLA

HHA

KIA

8 9 8.6

8 9 8.6

9 6 7.2

8 3 5.0

0.4 0.2 0.4 0.4 0.6

4.5 2.5 8.6 8 9 5.74

8 4 8.4 9 8 7.36

9 7.5 6.2 5 7 7.42

9 7.5 5.7 9 3.5 7.38

0.3 0.3 0.3 0.1

6 5 9 9 6.9

7 2 1 1 3.1

9 3 4 3 5.1

8 9 9 9 8.7

Safety Air accidents Road accidents Final score

0.4 0.6

Social impacts Regional planning Other utilisation Level of service Utilisation Distance Final Score Environmental impacts Noise and pollution Aviation impact Impact of structures Visual impact Final score

RVA


65

Table 4 Environmental quality index for the three different development alternatives. Environmental factor

Safety

Weights, wi

0.660

0.165

0.175

8.6 8.6 7.2 5

5.74 7.36 7.42 7.38

6.9 3.1 5.1 8.7

Reykjavik Airport (RVA) Reykjavik Lo¨ngusker Airport (RLA) Hvassahraun Airport (HHA) Keflavik International Airport (KIA)

Social impact

weighted sum is therefore the environmental quality index, that is. EQI ¼ U ð xÞ ¼

n X

Ui ðxi Þ wi

ð1Þ

i¼1

Since the economic aspects have been removed from the EQI, the weights were adjusted accordingly. Results are presented in table 4. There is relatively little difference between the EQI values. Retaining the present domestic airport seems to be the best choice, receiving the highest marks (RVA = 7.83). The landfill option comes out well (RLA = 7.43) because of favourable social impacts and high safety, although the environmental impacts are hardly acceptable. A new airport in Hvassahraun is the third best option (HHA = 6.87), and Keflavik International Airport (KIA = 6.04) brings up the rear. The difference between these values, however, seems insignificant, and would not form a good basis for decision making. It is therefore likely that the economic factors will mostly govern the final decision. It is noteworthy, regarding the environmental factors only, that the landfill solution, the so-called Lo¨ngusker Airport, receives very low marks or 3.1. This low value is only reflected indirectly in the overall grade and will not be reflected in the weights (cf. table 2), which give the combined environmental quality of this alternative. It might therefore be reasonable to introduce Bred flags,^ that is, if an Benvironmental factor^ in the broad sense is graded below a certain limit, say about 5, which corresponds to acceptable result (5Y7), that alternative should be discarded. Thus Lo¨ngusker Airport appears to be an unacceptable alternative due to the severe environmental consequences. 5. Economic viability and cost evaluation of the four alternatives The economic aspects of the four alternatives have been the subject of a special study by students in a class of engineering economics [10]. In this study, the costeffectiveness of the different projects was calculated, taking into account the various aspects of the investment, sacrificial costs included, 25-year operational costs at present value and travelling costs, i.e. travel to and from airport plus air time. The viability studies were quite

Environmental impact

EQI = ~wi I Ui(xi)

7.83 7.43 6.87 6.04

comprehensive, based on studies of numerous technical reports made available (i.a. [5]) and interviews of key persons. The main parameters were also subjected to a sensitivity analysis. The main results of this study, in the form of present value total costs, are presented in table 5. The high cost of the first option, RVA, that is, keeping the airport in the same place, is mostly associated with sacrificial cost due to loss of possible urban development on the airport land. The landfill airport RLA is most expensive due to very high development and construction costs, whereas moving the airport to Keflavik (KIA) is the least costly alternative, requiring building of a new domestic terminal only, and making available runways for training flights. Many different avenues of approach regarding the economic aspects are possible as there is a plethora of decision-making methodologies (see e.g., Winston [4]). An extensive and well-presented overview of multi-attribute decision making (MADM) methodologies can be found in the doctoral thesis of Dr Pan [11], which has a large number of references. In his thesis, Dr Pan presents and uses different methodologies such as the analytic hierarchy process and BRobust Planning^ for seeking multi-objective solutions regarding strategic resource planning of electric utilities. For the present case, the economic factors could be treated on an equal basis with other factors, i.e., social, environmental and safety factors. This requires a formal comparison and weighting of all four categories and finding the scores for the economic factors [15]. The second approach is to assess the environmental impacts in parallel with the preliminary design and justify selection of the Bbest^ solution with a viability analysis [12]. The third approach is to seek a Pareto optimal solu-

Table 5 Present value total cost of different domestic airport locations (1 euro = 85 ISK). Alternative Reykjavik Airport (RVA) Reykjavik Lo¨ngusker Airport (RLA) Hvassahraun Airport (HHA) Keflavik International Airport (KIA)

Present value total cost (million ISK)

Present value total cost (euros)

18.475 19.935

217.4 234.5

11.438 8.553

134.6 100.6


66

Reykjavik Domestic Airport Viability and Environmental Quality Pareto Optimum 10.0

RVA 50%

8.0

RVA

KIA

RLA

6.0

HHA

4.0 2.0 0.0 0

40

80

120

160

240

180

Present value investment and 25 year operational costs (Million Euros)

Figure 3. Pareto optimality presentation of trade-off points.

tion [4] in the form of a trade-off curve or frontier of solutions (a point estimate rather than a curve), sometimes called BRobust Planning.^ This last methodology was selected for finding the Bbest^ or acceptable solution from both economic and environmental point of view (the

A

decision is a compromise Y a trade off-between environmental quality and present value). Following Winston [4], a feasible solution B dominates a feasible solution A to a multiple-objective problem if B is at least as good as A with respect to every objective, and is strictly better than A with respect to at least one objective. Thus Pareto optimal solutions are the set of all undominated feasible solutions. If there are only two objectives (environmental quality and present value cost), the Pareto optimal solutions can be depicted in the xYy plane, with the present value costs on the x-axis and environmental quality on the y-axis. Since objective 1 (present costs) is to be minimised and objective 2 (EQI) is to be maximised, the curve formed by the Pareto optimal solutions is an efficient frontier with all unfeasible solutions below and to the right of each point on the frontier, which is sometimes called the trade-off curve. In figure 3, the trade-off curve is almost horizontal due to the slight variation of the environmental quality such that the optimal solution is apparently KIA, that is, moving the domestic air traffic to Keflavik International Airport. This is in part due to the vertical scale selected for the

Sensitivity Analysis Safety Aspects 9,00 8,00

RVA

7,00

RLA

6,00

HHA

5,00

KIA

4,00 3,00 2,00 1,00

35

25

0,

0,

15 0,

05 0,

,0

5

5 -0

,1 -0

5

25 -0 ,

,3 -0

5

,4 -0

,5 -0

,6 -0

5

0,00

5

Environmental Quality Index

10,00

Importance weights; variation from the evaluated (0,66)

B

Sensitivity Analysis Environmental Impact 8,00 7,00

RVA

6,00

RLA

5,00

HHA

4,00

KIA

3,00 2,00 1,00

0,

85

75 0,

0, 65

0, 55

0, 45

35 0,

0, 25

0, 15

05 0,

-0

-0

,0 5

0,00

,1 5


9,00

Importance weights; variation from the evaluated (0,17) Figure 4. (A) Variation of environmental quality of the four alternatives with different emphasis on safety. (B) Variation of environmental quality with different emphasis on environmental impacts. (C) Variation of environmental quality with different emphasis on social impact.


C

67

Sensitivity Analysis

RVA RLA HHA

0, 8

0, 7

0, 6

0, 5

0, 4

0, 3

0, 2

0, 1

0

KIA

-0 ,1

-0 ,2


Social Impact 10,00 9,00 8,00 7,00 6,00 5,00 4,00 3,00 2,00 1,00 0,00

Importance weights; variation from the evaluated (0,17) Figure 4. (Continued).

figure. It can be changed to make the environmental quality differences more pronounced; however, the overall conclusion is still the same. Interestingly, the Hvassahraun site (HHA), which is midway between Reykjavik and Keflavik, appears to be the second best option with the present airport (RVA) as a distant third. It is apparent, however, that the estimation of the land value of the present airport for urban development is crucial in this context. Some city officials have voiced their doubts about the high estimation of the land value for urban development that has been used in the viability investigations. For instance, should the land value be decreased by 50% (some people would even want to go lower than that), the present value investment and 25 years operational cost for the old domestic airport would be decreased to 161.2 million Euros. Nevertheless, with such reduction of the land value, retaining the present airport is still only a third best option.

option (also the HHA option) as access times would be decreased together with more safety on the road. In figure 4B, emphasis on the environmental impact is varied from the selected average value of 0.17. As the environmental impacts are taken more seriously, the RLA and HHA options lose ground, whereas the international airport and the present airport (KIA and RVA) remain strong, mostly because these two alternatives require very little construction and breaking of new ground. The high end of the chart emphasises the fact that the landfill option RLA should be discarded. Finally, in figure 4C, the sensitivity of social impacts is studied. Actually, variation of the importance of social issues does not have much effect on the final outcome. Environmental quality remains minimally affected by varying the social impact weights. 6. Conclusion

5.1. Sensitivity analysis The weights proposed by various sources (cf. table 2) vary considerably. As the weights are fundamental in calculating the environmental quality of the alternatives, it is of interest to see variation in the EQI when the different weights are varied. Thus, for instance, changing the importance value of safety, maintaining the sum of weights equal to 1, figure 4A shows the corresponding variation in the EQI. Attaching low importance to safety, for instance in the range 0Y0.5, strengthens the option of moving the airport to Keflavik International Airport (KIA). All other options lose out in terms of EQI. With increasing emphasis on safety, the present domestic airport receives the highest EQI value (together with RLA) as traffic accidents on the road to the other two alternatives carry more weight. It is interesting to note that the recent decision by the Road Department to build a four-lane motor highway between Reykjavik and Keflavik would further strengthen the KIA

In the paper, four different alternatives for locating a new domestic aviation centre in or around the capital region of Iceland are studied and compared by applying well-known operational analytical methods. The environmental quality of each alternative was calculated by defining the main economic, social and environmental factors of importance together with the safety aspect and attaching importance weights to each category. Moreover, a Pareto optimal solution for the alternatives was sought and presented in a two-dimensional plane with the overall environmental quality of each alternative and the present value investment and 25 years operational cost as the main parameters. The trade-off curve indicates three possible solutions: KIA, HHA and RVA 50% (the present airport with 50% of proposed land value). Moving the domestic traffic to Keflavik International Airport (KIA) seems the Bbest^ option, whereas RVA and RVA 50% offer the best environmental quality. Building a new domestic airport in

68


rugged lava field midways between Reykjavik and Keflavik International Airport is also a viable solution that certainly merits further study. The optimal solution will in the end be decided based on the disposition of the decision makers towards economic viability on one hand and environmental quality on the other. The Pareto solution does not seem to be overly dependent on environmental quality since the four alternatives have similar EQIs in the range 6Y8 on a scale of 0Y10. However, based on a sensitivity analysis of the category weights, which make up the EQI, increasing environmental concern disqualifies the RLA option and strongly reduces the appeal of the HHA option, both of which require considerable land disturbance, whereas the other two options (RVA and KIA) are favourably affected. Social impact does not seem to affect the environmental quality much and can more or less be disregarded. Regarding increasing concern for safety aspects, the KIA and the HHA options are unfavourably affected due to increased risk of road accidents. The planned four-lane motorway between Reykjavik and Keflavik would, however, greatly increase road safety and reduce travel times, thus further strengthening the case for those two options. For a more precise comparison of the four alternatives, both the environmental factors and the methodology need to be expanded and refined. It should be emphasised that the comparison is based on rather crude data and gross generalisation. However, it is believed that the methodology is sound and can be developed to give better estimates of the environmental quality index and the subsequent Pareto optimal solution and thus become an important tool in decision making of the kind indicated by this study of a very sensitive and hotly debated issue. Acknowledgements The authors want to express their gratitude to Professor Pa´ ll Jenson from the Department of Industrial and Mechanical Engineering who gave valuable advice regarding the interpretation of operations analysis methodologies and provided many ideas for exploration. The Research Fund of the University of Iceland provided a modest grant that enabled us to write this paper based on the work carried out by the second author for his master’s degree in environmental science.

References [1] M.W. Sondheim, A comprehensive methodology for assessing environmental impact, J. Environ. Manage. 6 (1978) 27Y47. [2] A. Thorgeirsson, Mat a´ umhverfisa´hrifum-aðferðafræði (Environmental impact assessment Y methodologies), MS thesis 131 pp., Reykjavı´k (2002).

[3] R. Bisset, Developments in EIA methods, in: Environmental Impact Assessment, P. Wathern, ed. (Routledge, London, 1988). [4] W.L. Winston, Operations Research, Applications and Algorithms (Chapters 11 and 13), 4th edn (Duxbury Press, Belmont CA, 2004). [5] Ho¨nnun, Æfingaflugvo¨llur Hvassahrauni: Forho¨nnun (A training airfield in Hvassahraun: preliminary design report in Icelandic). A Report to the Icelandic Aviation Administration, Reykjavik (2001). [6] L. Canter, Environmental Impact Assessment (McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1996). [7] T. Herbertsson, Location of Reykjavik Airport (in Icelandic). Report Nr. C97-01, City Planning Authority of Reykjavik, Institute of Economic Studies, University of Iceland (1997). [8] T.L. Saaty, Fundamentals of Decision Making and Priority Theory (RWS Publications, Pittsburgh, 2000). [9] R.E. Markland et al. Operations Management (Chapter 4) (South Western College Publishing, Cincinnati, OH, 1998). [10] A.H. Jonsdottir et al. Reykjavikurflugvo¨llur: Miðsto¨ð innanlandsflugs (Reykjavik airport: centre of domestic aviation), Student Report in Engineering Economy, Reykjavik (2001). [11] J. Pan, MADM framework for strategic resource planning of electric utilities, Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic and State University, Blacksburg, VA (1999). [12] P.K. Dey and A.S. Gupta, Quantitative Approach to Impact Assessment: A Case Study on Cross-country Petroleum Pipeline Project in India, 20th Annual Meeting of the International Association for Impact Assessment, Hong Kong (2000). [13] F.Y. Partovi, J. Burton and A. Banerjee, Application of analytic hierarchy process in operations management, Int. J. Oper. Prod. Manage. 10(3) (1990) 5Y19. [14] T.L. Saaty, The Analytic Hierarchy Process (McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1980). [15] J. Solnes, Environmental quality indexing of large industrial development using AHP, Environ. Impact Asses. Rev. 23 (2003) 283Y303. [16] T.E. Thorhallsdottir, Personal Communication (2002).

Bibliographical data Edvard Ju´lı´us So´lnes is a civil engineer at the University of Iceland (BS, 1958) and the Technical University of Denmark (TUD) (MS, 1961). After attending a course in Earthquake Engineering in Tokyo 1963Y1964, he completed his PhD studies at the TUD 1966. He was appointed Professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iceland in 1972. He became the first Minister for the environment in Iceland in 1989, but resumed his academic duties in 1991.

´ gu´st þorgeirsson is a civil engineer at the Heriot Watt University in A Edinburgh (BSc Honours, 1975). After a career in software engineering and computer applications, he took a master’s degree in environmental science from the University of Iceland in 2002. Mr. þorgeirsson is presently working as an independent consultant in civil engineering and environmental projects.