The idea of this book started at approximately 33.000 feet, somewhere
above the Alps. On our way to a workshop in Venice we had the
opportunity of appreciating the different types of landscapes and the
complex patchwork of urban areas, agriculture, forests, rivers and lakes
that can be seen from an aircraft. The complexity of this puzzle, and
the complex task of managing its evolution, became the topic of
conversation for the rest of the flight. It also became the topic of
this book. Land-use management and multicriteria analysis offer
countless opportunities for mutual reinforcement. These two fields have
developed largely independently, but a trend towards the exploration of
their synergies is now emerging. This is clear from the recent
literature on land-use management, spatial analysis and spatial
planning, which increasingly includes references to multicriteria
methodologies and decision analysis. At the same time, a growing share
of multicriteria applications now focus on environmental and land-use
issues. This book includes contributions from authors coming from a
variety of disciplines and backgrounds. All together they highlight
current issues in multicriteria analysis and land-use management from
theoretical, methodological and practical perspectives.