| Dr. Judit Lienert System Analysis, Integrated Assessment and Modelling Eawag Ueberlandstrasse 133 P. O. Box 611 8600 Duebendorf Switzerland | Phone +41 58 765 5574 Fax +41 58 765 5375 Office FC-D04 judit.lienert@eawag.ch |
Judit Lienert
Background and professional focus
Decision Analysis
The current research focus is
on environmental decisions in the water sector. Judit Lienert is leader of the group 'Decision Analysis' (see group homepage).
Many decisions in urban water management and in the management of natural water resources are not easy. The issues are often highly complex and involve large uncertainties. Natural as well as urban water systems are influenced by a multitude of factors, and decisions often involve large time scales. These characteristics make it difficult to predict the outcomes of decisions. Additionally, different stakeholders with diverging interests may be involved in water management decisions. The decision outcomes ultimately affect us all.
The role of decision science is to support professional stakeholders and society in making better-informed, thoughtful decisions. It ensures an effective, but also equitable and fair decision making process. To this end, both quantitative and more qualitative, participatory methods are needed, alone or combined in inter- or transdisciplinary projects.
Methodologically, a main focus of the work of Judit Lienert is on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), stakeholder analysis, and questionnaire surveys (e.g., acceptance of wastewater technologies, choice experiment). Recent projects applying Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) have thematically focused on: ‘Infrastructure and paradigm changes for a sustainable urban water management system’, ‘Pollutants with uncertain environmental impacts – How to deal with pharmaceuticals’, and ‘Management of natural resources (river rehabilitation)’.
Judit Lienert is also facilitator of the Research Area 'Urban Water Systems' at Eawag.
Since 2011 she teaches “Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis” at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.
Dissertation
Judit Lienert, born 1.11.1964,
studied systematic botany and environmental sciences at the University of
Zürich, with a diploma in biology in 2000 after a first career in nursing. In
2002, she completed her PhD on the population biology of wetland plants in
fragmented landscapes at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of
Zürich (www.unizh.ch/uwinst).
Novaquatis
Judit Lienert came to the Swiss
Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) in 2001. She was
project leader of the cross cutting project Novaquatis (www.novaquatis.eawag.ch), together with Tove Larsen.
Novaquatis explored the potential of urine source separation (NoMix technology).
It included research from the social, natural and engineering sciences, and
closely cooperated with practitioners in pilot projects. Based on the synthesis
of all work packages, NoMix technology was identified as highly promising for
water pollution control of nutrients, internationally as well as for
Switzerland.
Her own research during Novaquatis was also in an interdisciplinary
field. In this work, Judit Lienert combined previous skills (natural sciences,
statistical analyses) with new knowledge in the areas of social science
(questionnaire surveys, interviews, scenario analysis), ecotoxicology, and urban
water management.