D5.1 Multi-criteria assessment framework

The assessment of the sustainability of agricultural systems has been widely studied and has been the subject of numerous methodologies and models. After studying various models, a framework for assessing the sustainability of different agroecological alternatives for weed management based on a multi-criteria model has been chosen. Indicators have been selected in three categories, following the classic assessment theory (environmental, economic and social). The environmental assessment will be carried out by implementing environmental footprint indicators obtained from the life cycle analysis (LCA) methodology. The socioeconomic indicators will be taken from the cost-benefit analysis. From the multi-criteria methods studied, the TOPSIS methodology has been selected, which allows us to use data from the selected experimental sites and linguistic assessments of qualitative indicators. Within the chosen MCA framework, the criteria of the multicriteria model will be the indicators, and the alternatives will be the different management strategies. The result will be a ranking of numerically assessed strategies for each crop and bioregion, which can be implemented with group decision-making tools to obtain conclusions by crop or type of strategy.