Mediator: an expert system approach to facilitate environmental dispute resolution
Yichin Lee · 1990
As population grows, the demand for better utility services becomes eminent. Yet construction of these larger utility projects has not always been welcomed because of certain environmental concerns. Both the construction phase and operation phase, if not carefully monitored, threaten environmental balance. Sarcastic names like NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) or LULU (Locally Unwanted LandUse) applied to these projects reflect such observation. Just as environmental concerns about utility facilities are raising more and more conflicts in present day society, litigation as a means to resolve environmental conflicts has become more and more unaffordable, due to the scope of the problem usually involved in such conflicts. Both time and money spent in litigating an environmental dispute often effectively inhibit any progress on the project, and the public eventually bears the cost. On the other hand, alternative means for conflict resolution-namely mediation-has demonstrated efficiency and effectiveness in dealing with problems of a larger scale. With the help of a third party to help the disputants sort out the problems and construct consensus, conflicts can often be resolved with much less time and money, even though the mediator has no legal binding power. Developing expertise in mediation has generally required significant amount of time and effort in order to become experienced and proficient. And exactly how mediation works was rarely systematically explained. With the help of expert systems technology, we have attempted to capture the experience and decipher the knowledge with which a mediator resolves environmental conflicts. This research proposes a collaborative problem-solving mechanism built into a computer-based system that mimics a mediator's problem-solving behavior. Not only are we trying to capture the mediator's knowledge, but we are also conducting an ontological design of a meeting environment that would facilitate an efficient and effective mediation process. Decision analysis, multivariate analysis and expert systems technology are used to construct such a system. An expert mediator is also invited to help shape the meeting management process and construct the knowledge module. The result is a system that can systematically collect and analyze data, detect conflicts, and render suggestions for conflict resolution. The proposed problem-solving framework has proven to be applicable in multi-issue problems involving multiple parties, which indicates that a domain-independent mediation function is still attainable.