In the recent decades, there have been frequent conflicts between
groundwater resources and environmentally hazardous activities. An
example is the construction of the new highway through the important
glaciofluvial esker aquifer Nybroasen, which passes the protection zone
of the water supply for the Kalmar municipality, in the southeastern
part of Sweden. The decision to build the new road through this
important aquifer has been strongly questioned by the municipality and
the public because the value of the water resources in Nybroasen was not
taken into consideration during the first phase of the decision-making
process. Multicriteria decision aid (MCDA) is applied as a tool to
structure and analyze the four road alternatives proposed in the
environmental impact assessment for the above conflict. The
alternatives, including the existing road, are in conflict with water
resources, agriculture, natural, and cultural values. The impacts on the
water resources have been predicted by a two-dimensional physically
based time-variant flow and solute groundwater model, which has been
calibrated and evaluated. The MCDA illustrates how it can be used to
identify (1) actors and their concerns, (2) ranking of alternative road
scenarios according to actors' preferences, and (3) coalition groups of
actors, i.e., groups that have similar views with regard to the road
alternatives. The analysis shows that the two best compromise solutions
obtained in the MCDA were unacceptable by the strongest coalition group,
showing that either the family of criteria was not well chosen or new
alternatives should have been developed.