Step 3: Priority weighting

The final step deals with the Weighting priorities and Priority groups. These weights will be applied when the user starts running the scenario. An example is shown in Figure 1.

• Weight values range from 0 to 5, and affect how important a Priority Weighting Layer (PWL) is compared to other layers.

• A value of 0 indicates that the PWL has a lower importance.

• A value of 5 means that the PWL has a higher importance

Figure 1: Step 3 allows the user to set the weights of each Priority Group

Priority Groups

The Priority groups are used to assign weights to specific PWLs based on their importance. These PWLs are subsequently applied during the weighting of NCS pathways when creating a scenario analysis.

Add priority groups

To add a new priority group, the user must click on the button, as shown in Figure 1.

This will open a Priority Group Dialog box, where user required to fill the following information.

• Group name: Name of the group.
• Group description: Description of the group.
• Group value: Numeric value that reflect the importance of the priority layer.

• Assign priority layers: This allows users to allocate importance values to different PWLs.

  • To assign a priority layer, click on the Assign priority layers and select from the available PWLs in the list.(see Figure 3)

Figure 2: Priority Group Dialog

After filling in the required information, click on the OK button to add it to the Priority groups.

Figure 3: Assign priority layers

Edit group layer

Select the layer and click on the icon. This will open the Priority Group Dialog, allowing you to edit the group name, group description, group value, and assign new priority layers.

Figure 4: Priority Group Dialog Edit

Click OK to apply the changes.

Remove group layer

Select the layer and click on the to remove the layer from the priority group.

Prority Weighting Layers

The priority weighting layers can be selected, added and removed into each priority group by using the arrow buttons.

Add priority layers

Select the target layer from the priority weighting layers list and the destination group from the priority groups and use the left arrow button to add the layer to the group.

Remove priority layers

Select the target layer from the priority weighting layers list from its priority group and use the right arrow button to remove the layer to the group.

Create custom priority layers

• Click on to add a new custom priority layer, or to edit an existing priority layer.

• This will open the Priority Layer dialog (see Figure 5).

Methods to create layers

Method 1: Create manually

• The following parameters need to be set:

  • Priority layer: The layer that represents the priority layer.
  • Priority layer name: A unique identifier for the priority layer.
  • Priority layer description: A detailed description of the priority layer.

• Click the Assign NCS Pathways button to select NCS pathways to be associated with the priority layer (see Figure 5)

Figure 5: Priority layer dialog

• Select the NCS pathways you want to be associated with the priority layer (see Figure 6).

• Click OK.

Figure 6: NCS pathway selection for priority layers

Method 2: Create Online

• After clicking on this option a drop down menu will appear with the available online defaults.

• Select the desired online default.

• Select the applicable NCS pathways, then click on the 1️⃣ OK button, to create the PWL.

• Click the Remove PWL button to remove one or more of the selected PWLs from the list.

Create a new financial priority layer Net Present Value (NPV)

• Click on the icon to add a new financial priority layer.

• This will open the Financial priority layer dialog. By default, on first-time load, the NPV configurations for all NCS pathways are disabled.

  

• To enable the NPV for an NCS pathway, check the NPV Priority Weighting Layer group box.

  

• Enter the number of years and discount rate. Then, input the revenue and cost values for the respective years. The greyed out cells (i.e., Year and Discount Value) indicate that these values are automatically populated.

• On updating the discount rate, revenue, and cost values, the total NPV is automatically updated.

• For an enabled NPV PWL, all revenue and cost values must be specified. Otherwise, an error message will appear in the message bar indicating which NCS pathway(s) and corresponding years have missing values. This occurs when the user tries to create or update the PWLs:

  

• It is recommended to leave the Use computed NPVs checkbox enabled (the default option). This ensures that the minimum and maximum normalisation values can be synced and automatically updated when user input changes. The min/max values will be based on enabled NPV parameters for NCS pathways. Disabled NPV parameters (in the group box) will be excluded when computing the min/max normalisation values.

  

• When the Remove existing PWLs for disabled NCS pathway NPVs checkbox is enabled, any previously created NPV PWLs will be deleted when updating the NPVs.

  

• Click on Update button to create the new financial priority layer. A dialog showing the progress of creating/updating the NPVs will be displayed.

  

• Upon creating NPV PWL rasters, the corresponding PWLs will be created or updated in the list of PWLs. The naming convention for these layers will be [NCS pathway name] NPV Norm:

  

• An NPV layer, which is a constant raster containing the normalised value, will be created under the {BASE_DIR}/priority_layers/npv directory. The extents are based on the user-defined extents from Step 1.

Setting groups values

Move the slider to adjust the weight of each group, values can also be set manually, by using the left input spin box.

Click here to explore the step 4 section.

Click here to explore the log section.

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Last update: June 9, 2025