Analysing environmental conflicts using the evaporating cloud tool

ABSTRACT Environmental conflict management involves the management of multiple stakeholders with conflicting stakes. This study proposes and demonstrates the application of evaporating cloud as a tool to the area of environmental conflicts. Through a structured methodology and logical diagramming, the evaporating cloud builds on the traditional stakeholder analysis to analyse environmental conflicts. The Transmission Gully motorway, a well-known New Zealand case of environmental conflict, is used as a case study. Following a rational level stakeholder analysis, the evaporating cloud is used to dissect different stakeholder conflicts, based on the explicit wants and actions, needs and requirements, and goals of the disputants and the implicit assumptions underlying the conflicts. The tool further provides a mechanism to reach a core conflict through a synthesis of three separate stakeholder conflicts in the case. Overall, this study provides an improved method for analysing environmental conflicts and offers a practical tool for analysing stakeholder arguments and their conflicts systematically.