| Nowadays, the exploitation rate of natural resources exceeds the regeneration capacity of the planet. Therefore, for the first time in their history, human beings are forced to revise their consumption habits, or the available resources might no longer be able to meet the needs of future generations. In response, several signs indicate that waste management is an important part of the solution. By following a scheme of reducing, re-using, recycling and energy recovering, the result is a longer life span of the materials in the systems, thus a reduction of the demand for natural resources. However, due to the additional impacts attributed to management activities (transport, processing, etc.), the proposed hierarchy may not always be the best option in terms of social acceptability, economic performance or environmental compatibility.;The results demonstrate that management based on the principles of energy conservation is appropriate to study waste management systems in an optic of decision support. Besides supporting territorial management, the DWM allows a better understanding of systems dynamics and of sensitive variables. Although the approach respects the principles of sustainable socio-economic development, the achievement of environmental objectives rests primarily on the collective will to adopt behaviour in this direction and on a supported leadership from the decision-makers.;Keywords: Waste management, decision support tool, network approach, simulation model, systemic approach, integrated management.;Although several tools are available to support decision making in waste management, users denounce their lack of flexibility, their limited scope, their inability to solve complex problems and their difficulty of use. In order to correct these deficiencies, the research project focuses on developing a new integrated approach for decision support (the Dynamic Waste Management, DWM) in order to support a systemic and evolutionary waste management. Inspired by the law of conservation of energy, and more particularly by Bernoulli's theorem, the DWM allows ensuring a constant supply of the favourable options (with low impacts) in a system, while minimizing the global impacts. To compare the different options in a system, the thesis also presents a methodology to bring a set of criteria under a common base. The values obtained, the Global Allocation Indexes (GIA) are calculated using analysis tools and are recognized as "loads" in the network approach developed. |
