Assessing stakeholder evaluation concerns: An application to the Central Arizona water resources system

We present an approach for efficiently assessing stakeholder evaluation concerns in the first stage of problem structuring for decisions involving complex systems. We used a Web survey to assess the appropriateness of a set of evaluation concerns for evaluating Central Arizona water resources system policies and to gather information on stakeholder priorities. The resulting set of concerns brings a “decision focus” to the modeling efforts of the NSF‐funded Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University. This problem structuring approach, the set of evaluation concerns, and the analysis of variations among stakeholder group priorities can serve as a starting point for other similar policy settings. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng