Structured decision making to rank North American Wetland Conservation Act proposals within joint venture regions

The North American Wetlands Conservation Act (16 U.S.C. 4401-4412) provided funding and administration for wetland management and conservation projects. The North American Wetland Conservation Fund, enabled in 1989 with the Act, provides financial resources. Resource allocation decisions are based, in part, on regional experts, particularly migratory bird Joint Ventures (JVs) (i.e., partnerships for cooperative planning and coordinated management of the continent’s waterfowl populations and habitats). The JVs evaluate funding proposals submitted with their respective regions each year and make funding recommendations to decision makers. Proposal evaluation procedures differ among JVs, however, it could be helpful to consider a transparent, repeatable, and data-driven framework for prioritization within regions. We used structured decision making and linear additive value models for ranking proposals within JV regions. We used two JVs as case studies and constructed two different value models using JV-specific objectives and weights. The framework was developed through a collaborative process with JV staff and stakeholders. Models were written in Microsoft Excel. To test these models, we used six NAWCA proposals submitted to the Upper Mississippi / Great Lakes Joint Venture in 2016 and seven proposals submitted to the Gulf Coast Joint Venture in 2017. We compared proposal ranks assigned by the value model to ranks assigned by each JV’s management board. Ranks assigned by the value model differed from ranks assigned by the board for the Upper Mississippi / Great Lakes Joint Venture, but not for the Gulf Coast Joint Venture. However, ranks from the value model could change markedly with different objective weights and value functions. The weighted linear value model was beneficial for ranking NAWCA proposals because it allows JVs to treat the ranking as a multiple objective problem and tailor the ranking to their specific regional concerns. We believe a structured decision making approach could be adapted by JV staff to facilitate a systematic and transparent process for proposal ranking by their management boards.