ANALYSIS Participatory decision-making in land use planning: An application in Costa Rica M. Marchamalo a , C. Romero b, ⁎ a Research Group: Hydrobiology, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain b Research Group: Economics for a Sustainable Environment, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 3 August 2006 Received in revised form 16 November 2006 Accepted 9 January 2007 Available online 21 February 2007 The economic, social and environmental implications of electricity generation for land use planning are a significant and complex problem in many countries. One reason for this complexity is the existence of several stakeholders with very different views or perceptions of the different criteria underlying the decision-making process. Therefore, the aggregation of individual stakeholder preferences into a single collective preference is a crucial problem. In this paper, this type of problem is addressed with the help of a methodology based upon the definition of a consensus within a distance-based framework. The methodology is applied to a case study in Costa Rica at two levels: at a national level and at a river basin level. The River Birrís was chosen because the conflict of interests between agricultural production and electricity generation are especially significant in this basin. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Participatory decision-making Social preferences Land use planning Electricity generation Goal programming Costa Rica 1. Introduction Electricity generation and land use planning are very often interlaced. Dealing with the two problems together is a realistic but at the same time complex approach. There are two different grounds for this complexity. First, the process involves a host of very different criteria (economic, environmental, social, etc.) and, second, there is more than one stakeholder with different views or perceptions of these criteria (e.g., Georgopoulou et al., 1998; Hobbs, 1995). The search for a solution to this type of problem calls for the development of a participatory decision- making process within a context of multiple criteria. The need to deal with electricity generation and land use planning jointly is especially significant in Costa Rica. In fact, Costa Rica's electricity system is composed of three subsystems: generation, transmission and distribution. Fig. 1 illustrates the current generation mix, clearly showing that the hydroelectric component is the main source of electricity generation (around 73%). It is interesting to note that non-renewable energy represents only 16% of total generation, and its source is thermal (ICE, 2000). There is no nuclear electricity generation in the country, nor are there any plans for this in the short term. Within this scenario the problem of electricity planning depends mainly on a rational land use planning strategy focused primarily on the main energy-producing river basins. The Birrís River Basin is located on the southern slopes of the Irazú Volcano, a 3400 m high volcanic cone located in central Costa Rica. The Birrís River Basin is part of the Reventazón River District draining to the Atlantic Ocean (see Fig. 2). The hydrographic network is dense due to newly formed geology ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS 63 (2007) 740 – 748 ⁎ Corresponding author. E.T.S.I. Montes, Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid 28040, Spain. Tel.: +34 913366393; fax: +34 915439557. E-mail address: carlos.romero@upm.es (C. Romero). 0921-8009/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.01.006 available at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon