The summary from the detailed analysis of the case study in EPA (1988b) is provided in Table 3 of the manuscript, and was used as the data source for the two datasets used in this study. These include a flat and hierarchical structure of the five balancing criteria, shown in Table 4 and Table 5, respectively. Table 4 provides a comprehensive score for each balancing criterion, similar to the summary tables presented in the FS of Superfund sites (e.g., (EPA 2016b, AECOM 2019)). Table 5 uses the same information in Table 3, but in this case, each piece of information is used to define multiple sub-criteria for each balancing criterion, except the cost one. This leads to a much more elaborate information table with the four remaining balancing criteria, now characterized by 13 sub-criteria.

It is important to note that the scoring provided in Table 4 and Table 5, with the exception of the cost (c_5), were derived from the author’s interpretation of the descriptive language of the detailed analysis in for the hypothetical case study in presented in Table A-7 in Appendix A of the guidance document of EPA (1988b). It should be noted that the analysis of the three remedy alternatives presented in this hypothetical case study is governed by site-specific characteristics and may not represent potential performance of these remediation alternatives for other sites . The intent of this exercise is to illustrate the flexibility and adaptability of the MCDA process to address both the main, overarching criteria, as well as sub-criteria that may have specific importance in the decision process for a particular site. Ultimately, the sub-criteria can be adapted to address specific stakeholder perspectives or technical factors that may be linked to properties unique to the contaminant or physical characteristics of the site.

This dataset is associated with the following publication: Cinelli, M., M.A. Gonzalez, R. Ford, J. McKernan, S. Corrente, M. Kadziński, and R. Słowiński. Supporting contaminated sites management with Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis: Demonstration of a regulation-consistent approach. JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, USA, 316: 128347, (2021).