Contemporary territories are unstable, subject to fast conversion processes, and complex in the decision, design, management and transformation areas. They undergo continuous changes, which lead to transitory and unclear solutions. In other words, that they represent “weak” or unstructured problems since they are characterized by multiple actors, many and often conflicting values and views, and a wealth of possible outcomes and high uncertainty. In this context, a very useful aid is provided by Multicriteria Analysis methods, which are used to make a comparative assessment of alternative projects or heterogeneous measures. These methods allow several criteria to be taken into account simultaneously in a complex situation and they are designed to help Decision Makers to integrate the different options, which reflect the opinions of the involved actors, in a prospective or retrospective framework. Participation of the Decision Makers in the process is a central part of the approach.

• Recognition of the relevant stakeholders having a role in the decision problem under investigation, defining relative needs and interests in the system. Stakeholders classification and mapping in order to identify their expectations and to define the objectives and values to be considered in the decision process.
• Comprehensive and systemic evaluation of alternative transformation scenarios through the measurement of the performance of the considered options with reference to different objectives and criteria through the implementation of several MCA methods, such as Analytic Hiearchy Process, Analytic Network Process, ELECTRE, Multi-Attribute Value Theory etc.
• Establishment of priorities and production of projects ranking for leading the choice among multiple options, including in the evaluation the preferences of experts and Decision Makers through the organization of interviews and focus groups.
• Creation of specific evaluation maps through the application of the Spatial Multicriteria Analysis, which combines Geographic Information Systems and Multicriteria Analysis in order to transform and integrate spatial data and Decision Maker’s preferences and uncertainties and to obtain an overall assessment of the decision alternatives.
• Performing sensitivity analysis through “what if” kind of question to see if the final results of the evaluation model are stable when the inputs, whether judgments or priorities, are changed.