Measuring the sustainability of cities: An analysis of the use of local indicators

We analyze 17 studies of the use of urban sustainable development indicators (SDI) in developed western countries. The analysis reveals a lack of consensus not only on the conceptual framework and the approach favored, but also on the selection and optimal number of indicators. First, by performing different classifications and categorizations of SDI we identify problems inherent in territorial practices that use SDI. Second, we argue that the lack of consensus in several steps of the creation of SDI stems notably from the ambiguity in the definitions of sustainable development, objectives for the use of such indicators, the selection method and the accessibility of qualitative and quantitative data. Third, based on the reviewed studies, we propose a selection strategy for SDI through which we demonstrate the need to adopt a parsimonious list of SDI covering the sustainable development components and their constituent categories as broadly as possible while minimizing the number of indicators retained.     

持续发展指标研究简介

1　背景《21世纪议程》(第40章)号召建立持续发展的指标体系,它特别要求各国在国家水平,各国际组织和非政府组织在国际水平上建立持续发展指标的概念。因此,在联合国持续发展委员会(ＣＳＤ)第一次全会上,就提出了持续发展指标的工作规划,并获准通过。那时候,有很多国家一再强调建立指标的迫切性,另外一些国家则表示了某些关注并坚持在建立指标的过程中必须与政府部门密切联系。这个工作计划的目标是通过对指标的定义,方法论的阐述,提供培训和其它相应的能力建设,为各国决策者在国家水平上提供持续发展指标。有许多国家正在建立他们自己的指…     

生态社区评价指标体系研究进展

生态社区建设融合了建筑学、生态学、社会学等多学科原理,充分体现了人与自然和谐的理念,是符合可持续发展理念的社区发展模式。生态社区评价指标体系在一定的一级指标框架下,采用定性或定量的评价指标,评判社区的可持续发展水平。对生态社区的概念和内涵、形成与发展历程、国内外生态社区相关评价指标体系进行总结和归纳,在此基础上综述了生态社区评价指标体系的研究进展,包括评价主体、一级指标框架的构建、二三级指标使用的频度分析及指标权重的确定方法。最后总结分析了生态社区指标体系研究中对外环境关联、动态发展、参与性与适应性等方面的不足,提出将复杂性理论、生命周期分析方法和生态足迹分析引入生态社区评价指标体系的研究,以提高指标体系的系统性、科学性和参与性。     

Utilizing biofuels for sustainable development in the panel of 17 developed and developing countries

This study investigates the dynamic linkages between biofuels production and sustainable indicators in the panel of 17 developed and developing countries, over the period of 2000–2012. The study emphasized the role of biofuels production in the sustainable development of the region. For this purpose, the study utilized four main sustainable indicators including carbon dioxide emissions, energy intensity, renewable energy generation, and total population that have a significant impact on the biofuels production. The study used dynamic heterogeneous panel econometric technique – Generalized Method of Moments and found that carbon dioxide emissions increase along with the increase in biofuels production. Therefore, the caution should be applied when burning the biofuels during the production process. In addition, renewable electricity generation also increases the biofuels production in the region. The results of robust least square regression confirmed that all of the sustainable indicators have a significant association with the biofuels production, as total primary energy consumption increases the biofuels production, while total population significantly decreases the biofuels production in the region. The results derived to the conclusion that for sustainable development in the region, the policymakers should have to formulate carbon free policies that coupled with the renewable energy sources for emphasizing the life cycle of bioenergy during the production process.     

Indicators of sustainable tourism: A case study from a Taiwan's wetland

This study aims to identify indicators for sustainable wetland tourism. In study 1, the fuzzy Delphi method was used to determine key dimensions and indicators. In study 2, the relative weights of these dimensions and indicators were examined using the analytic hierarchy process. The empirical results revealed 141 indicators in the hierarchy for sustainable wetland tourism. At the first level, the weight of the stakeholder dimension was greater than that of the environment dimension. At the second level, the impact on community development was the most important factor within the stakeholder dimension. Among the identified indicators, the top 7.8% were respect for local traditional culture, respect for local lifestyle, compliance with destination guidelines, traffic problems, destruction of the natural environment, existence of crowds at the destination, participation in cultural activities, understanding the culture, assimilation into the local culture, overall effect of tourism, benefit–cost differential, and reduction of environmental impact. A series of management implications are drawn, including the need to use this information to foster stakeholder involvement and collaboration, to focus on planning for sustainable tourism development in general, and to use these indicators for the management of wetland-based sustainable tourism development.     

Internet scientific name frequency as an indicator of cultural salience of biodiversity

Public interest in nature is an important driver of the success of conservation actions, such that increasing public awareness of biodiversity has become a major conservation goal (i.e. Aichi Target 1). Macro-scale monitoring of public interest towards nature has thus far been difficult, but the enormous quantity of information generated by the internet allows for new approaches using culturomic techniques. For example, other things being equal, we would expect that the vernacular (common) names of charismatic species with high levels of public interest (e.g. tiger, elephant) to appear on more web-pages than less ‘cultural’ species. Nevertheless, deriving metrics from such data is challenging because vernacular names often have multiple meanings (e.g. teal, jaguar) that could significantly bias culturomic metrics of cultural visibility. Scientific binomial names of species potentially avoid this problem because Latin is a ‘dead’ language and the scientific name typically applies only to the biological organism. Here, we investigate whether standard scientific names: i) are a robust proxy of web salience of vernacular species names, and; ii) have the same statistical relationship with vernacular species names across different cultural and language groups. Automated internet searches were carried out for scientific and vernacular names from a global bird species list and six national bird species lists (Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Spain, Tanzania and USA). For national searches the results were restricted to country web domains. We found strong and consistent correlations between vernacular and scientific species names at both global and country level, independent of language and cultural differences. The universality of this relationship suggests that the web salience of scientific species names is a robust, cross-cultural indicator of species ‘culturalness’. Potential applications of this indicator include: i) the development of new indicators to assess public perceptions of biodiversity; ii) systematic identification of species with high cultural visibility; iii) empirical identification of the biogeographic, ecological, morphological and cultural characteristics of species that influence cultural visibility, globally and in different cultural settings, and; iv) near real-time monitoring of changes in species ‘culturalness’. The capture and processing of internet data is technically non-trivial, but can be replicated at low cost and has enormous potential for the creation of new macro-scale metrics of human-nature interactions.     

Sustainability indicators for municipalities of megacities: Integrating health,safety and environmental performance

The sustainability assessment of public sector organizations including municipalities, with a focus on the integration of health, safety, and environmental (HSE) issues in the context of sustainability performance indicators, has almost remained underexplored. Moreover, since a large number of the activities of megacities’ municipalities have directly to do with HSE issues, there seems to be a substantial gap in the study of megacities and corresponding local public administrations. The present study is aimed at developing a performance evaluation tool, supported by indicators, to monitor the HSE aspects of sustainable development in the municipalities of megacities. To put the proposed tool into practice, a set of performance evaluation indicators is proposed to be adopted in Iranian municipalities, integrated in the megacity of Tehran. The selection process was conducted by employing Delphi technique. In doing so, a 2-round questionnaire was responded by qualified experts to select the most robust indicators of HSE performance and evaluate the priority of each indicator. A total of 80 indicators were generated and grouped into 13 categories, 29 sub-categories, and 7 themes- (Health (H), Safety (S), Environment (E), Health-Safety (HS), Health-Environment (HE), Safety-Environment (SE), and Health, Safety and Environment (HSE)). Findings indicate that amongst the overall average score of the 13 categories, “Fire and emergency response” is the most important category, closely followed by “Waste”, “Transportation”, and “Natural systems” categories. Moreover, among the 7 proposed themes, the integrated “HSE theme”, nearly followed by “safety theme”, plays the most significant role in enhancing the HSE performance of sustainability in Tehran municipalities. It is concluded that in the HSE context of the megacities municipalities under scrutiny, social aspects of sustainability gain more attention in comparison with the environmental ones. Furthermore, in municipalities of megacities, the indicators related to health and safety could be considered as ‘key indicators’ and should be thus classified into independent categories so that their roles can be highlighted in the management and assessment of municipal sustainable development.     

Development of common indicators of sustainable forest management

The scope of sustainable forest management has been defined by a range of criteria and indicators, each applicable to certain local needs and situations. At the same time, public expectation of forest management have been evolving, and new indicators are constantly being proposed. It is possible to draw on the expertise represented by different criteria and indicator schemes to identify a set of indicators that are likely to be relevant to most situations. When this was done for British Columbia, Canada, it became apparent that there were many gaps in our understanding of indicators, and that there were also some areas that were poorly developed. Here we identify that socio-economic and cultural indicators of sustainable forest management are particularly weak and suggest the use of indices of social capital and the creation of a criterion dealing specifically with Aboriginal issues would help remedy these deficiencies.     

Suburban scenario development based on multiple landscape assessments

Housing suburbanisation led in the past decades to problems caused by deconcentration of population and intensive area-consumption. Major social, economic and ecological functions for a sustainable spatial decision support in the suburban landscape are described and functionalised by indicators and modelled using GIS with the aim to minimise the problems related to the suburbanisation. The indicators chosen include human-ecological functions, accessibility and infrastructure development and the regulation and regeneration of population and biocoenosis. Out of a balanced list of 11 indicators (one is used twice) the regulation of traffic noise immissions, the landscape accessibility to the nearest freeway and the habitat network integration of sites are modelled, assessed and discussed detailed. The indicator modelling operationalises a wide range of methods including the analysis of travel costs, distance functions, visibility analysis and landscape metrics on the basis of public available data (biotope types, digital elevation model and road data). The methods are applied to a suburban agricultural landscape northeast of Leipzig in Saxony/Germany (66 km²). Three scenarios developed for the aggregation of multiple considerations are demonstrated with maps — based on the status quo of the “(mono)-functional landscape”, the “multi functional landscape” and the “sustainable landscape”. The scenarios aggregate an increasing number of indicators to form a comprehensive assessment. The result maps clearly show the suitable areas for private housing that fulfil e.g. silence, recreational functions while simultaneously ensuring nature protection. The paper emphasises the integrative prospects of landscape functions for monitoring, indicator assessment and the integration to land use decision-making in the context of spatial planning.     

Sustainable Development Goals: A need for relevant indicators

At the UN in New York the Open Working Group created by the UN General Assembly proposed a set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which comprises 17 goals and 169 targets. Further to that, a preliminary set of 330 indicators was introduced in March 2015. Some SDGs build on preceding Millennium Development Goals while others incorporate new ideas. A critical review has revealed that indicators of varied quality (in terms of the fulfilment certain criteria) have been proposed to assess sustainable development. Despite the fact that there is plenty of theoretical work on quality standards for indicators, in practice users cannot often be sure how adequately the indicators measure the monitored phenomena. Therefore we stress the need to operationalise the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets and evaluate the indicators’ relevance, the characteristic of utmost importance among the indicators’ quality traits. The current format of the proposed SDGs and their targets has laid a policy framework; however, without thorough expert and scientific follow up on their operationalisation the indicators may be ambiguous. Therefore we argue for the foundation of a conceptual framework for selecting appropriate indicators for targets from existing sets or formulating new ones. Experts should focus on the “indicator-indicated fact” relation to ensure the indicators’ relevance in order for clear, unambiguous messages to be conveyed to users (decision- and policy-makers and also the lay public). Finally we offer some recommendations for indicators providers in order to contribute to the tremendous amount of conceptual work needed to lay a strong foundation for the development of the final indicators framework.     

Preliminary cladistic analysis of genera of the cestode order Trypanorhyncha Diesing, 1863

A preliminary cladistic analysis was carried out on the 49 currently recognised genera of the order Trypanorhyncha. Forty-four characters were analysed; a functional outgroup was used for scolex and strobilar characters, while Nybelinia was utilised to polarise characters related to the rhyncheal system. Eight well-resolved clades were evident in the resultant cladogram, which is compared with existing phenetic classifications. An analysis of families resulted in a similar clustering of taxa to that observed in the case of the genera. The results suggest that two key characters used in existing classifications, namely the presence of sensory fossettes on the bothridia and the development of atypical heteroacanth and poeciloacanth armatures from typical heteroacanth armatures, have occurred on several occasions. Some clades provide support for the arrangements used in current classifications. Suggestions are made for future avenues of research which might provide more robust phylogenetic data for the Trypanorhyncha.     

Robust allele-specific polymerase chain reaction markers developed for single nucleotide polymorphisms in expressed barley sequences

Many methods have been developed to assay for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), but generally these depend on access to specialised equipment. Allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (AS-PCR) is a method that does not require specialised equipment (other than a thermocycler), but there is a common perception that AS-PCR markers can be unreliable. We have utilised a three primer AS-PCR method comprising of two flanking-primers combined with an internal allele-specific primer. We show here that this method produces a high proportion of robust markers (from candidate allele specific primers). Forty-nine inter-varietal SNP sites in 31 barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) genes were targeted for the development of AS-PCR assays. The SNP sites were found by aligning barley expressed sequence tags from public databases. The targeted genes correspond to cDNAs that have been used as restriction fragment length polymorphic probes for linkage mapping in barley. Two approaches were adopted in developing the markers. In the first approach, designed to maximise the successful development of markers to a SNP site, markers were developed for 18 sites from 19 targeted (95% success rate). With the second approach, designed to maximise the number of markers developed per primer synthesised, markers were developed for 18 SNP sites from 30 that were targeted (a 60% success rate). The robustness of markers was assessed from the range of annealing temperatures over which the PCR assay was allele-specific. The results indicate that this form of AS-PCR is highly successful for the development of robust SNP markers. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available for this article at and is accessible for authorized users.     

Meta-performance evaluation of sustainability indicators

There are many different kinds of frameworks for evaluating environmental and sustainability performance at the organizational level (profit or not-for-profit, private or public), sectoral level (e.g. industry, transport, agriculture and tourism), and local, regional or country levels. Despite the diversity of methods and tools to measure sustainable development, indicators are one of the approaches most used. However, these tools do not usually include evaluation of the performance measurement instrument itself. The main objective of this research is to develop a conceptual framework to design and assess the effectiveness of the sustainability indicators themselves. To put the proposed tool into practice, a set of key good-practice factors and meta-performance evaluation indicators is proposed for adoption in a national case study—the national sustainable development indicators system, SIDS Portugal, and the usefulness of this methodology is demonstrated. This approach aims to evaluate how appropriate a set of sustainability indicators is and allow an evaluation of overall performance-monitoring activities and results. Stakeholder involvement is an essential component of the proposed framework. The tool developed could support continuous improvement in the performance of ongoing sustainability indicator initiatives, allowing greater guidance, objectivity and transparency in sustainability assessment processes.     

Species at risk habitat conservation on private land: the perspective of cattle ranchers

Cattle ranchers are challenged to meet the needs of a growing population in an environmentally sustainable manner while also contributing to biodiversity conservation on rangelands. Incentive programs have been developed to encourage voluntary stewardship of endangered species on privately owned and managed lands. However, there is a lack of evidence regarding the efficacy of such programs from the perspective of the rancher. We interviewed cattle ranchers participating in a national program that supported voluntary stewardship initiatives to support the recovery of species at risk in southwest Saskatchewan, Canada. Out of 23 ranchers interviewed, 21 identified as having ranched their entire lives. Their insights provide expert opinion on species at risk conservation on privately managed agricultural lands. The data found that 100% of the interviewed ranchers were satisfied with the program they were involved in and felt that being in the program was beneficial to them. Through participation in this voluntary stewardship program, these ranchers actively conserved habitat for species at risk and were rewarded for their stewardship. Other significant findings were the value of having a local delivery agency for stewardship programs, and the need to educate the general public about the species at risk habitat stewardship that cattle ranchers provide. We conclude with eight recommendations for national program consideration to contribute to more effective and robust policy development regarding species at risk conservation on agricultural lands.

     

Composite indicators for a sustainable campus—Design rationale and methodology: The case of the Catholic Institute of Lille

Having first appeared in the mid-1990s, policy actions for improving how sustainable development principles are put into practice on university campuses have been growing more and more. This has taken place mainly on North American campuses and has subsequently spread to a number of developed nations across the globe, bringing to light in each case an array of indicators used to cover all the components of this concept. The purpose of this article is firstly to define the major principles that Lille Catholic University holds in order to set up its own sustainable development indicators. Secondly, this article focuses on the formulae used for creating a composite indicator for a sustainable campus. Thirdly, it will try to highlight some of the possible actions that could be implemented on campus in order to improve the score of some of these indicators.     

Developing the methodology for determining the relative weight of dimensions employed in sustainable building assessment tools for Brazil

The fundamental differences between the dimensions of sustainable development have been identified by researchers and many assessment tools have been developed in several countries. This paper introduces the development of a methodology for determining the weight of each dimension employed in sustainable construction assessment through the use of assessment tools that use the Brazilian indicators of sustainable development in accordance with the Commission on Sustainable Development, and also through the utilization of a database provided by the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE). Firstly, the Sustainability Panel tool was employed to reveal separately the status of dimensions in sustainable development (environmental, social and economic) and then it was made a statistical analysis of the results for each region in Brazil (north, northeast, midwest, southeast and south). The solution presented in this paper aims to reduce the inconsistencies found in the adjustments of the assessment tools considering regional differences based on political actions included in governmental agencies.     

The Effect of Ostracism and Optional Participation on the Evolution of Cooperation in the Voluntary Public Goods Game

Not only animals, plants and microbes but also humans cooperate in groups. The evolution of cooperation in a group is an evolutionary puzzle, because defectors always obtain a higher benefit than cooperators. When people participate in a group, they evaluate group member’s reputations and then decide whether to participate in it. In some groups, membership is open to all who are willing to participate in the group. In other groups, a candidate is excluded from membership if group members regard the candidate’s reputation as bad. We developed an evolutionary game model and investigated how participation in groups and ostracism influence the evolution of cooperation in groups when group members play the voluntary public goods game, by means of computer simulation. When group membership is open to all candidates and those candidates can decide whether to participate in a group, cooperation cannot be sustainable. However, cooperation is sustainable when a candidate cannot be a member unless all group members admit them to membership. Therefore, it is not participation in a group but rather ostracism, which functions as costless punishment on defectors, that is essential to sustain cooperation in the voluntary public goods game.     

高密度城市社区公共空间参与式营造——以社区花园为例

新时代背景下,对于如何实现社区公共空间有机更新与可持续发展,笔者尝试通过实践研究与分析,探索出一条适合高密度城市公共空间有机更新和可持续发展相结合的发展路径。在对上海社区花园的空间特征和属性进行归纳总结的基础上,提出社区公共空间参与式营造的4级结构和3种发展途径,并从政府宣传引导、社会组织推动和挖掘社区“领袖”等不同层面给出社区营造的建议,解析社区花园如何通过公众参与实现多元共治,让社区营造有可能成为日常生活的有机部分。     

A proposal of a fuzzy rule-based system for the analysis of health and health environments in Brazil

A challenging activity in the promotion of sustainable development is to synthesise indicators that can support decision-making. In developing countries such as Brazil, the use of information in support of the health and health-related environment of humans needs improvement. This paper presents a proposal for a system that can evaluate human health and urban environment sanitation in an integrated manner. The indicators selected for human health were child mortality rate, mortality rate due to acute diarrhoea for all ages and 1–4-year-old mortality rate due to acute respiratory tract infections. Environmental sanitation has been represented by indicators of sanitation coverage, such as sewerage. The paper describes the design of a fuzzy linguistic model that synthesises these indicators. The designed fuzzy rule-based system has proved to be a useful tool to integrate information and assist in the public planning of interrelated areas.     

生态系统服务需求、供给和消费研究进展

生态系统服务的持续供给是社会和自然可持续发展的基础,人类通过对生态系统服务的消费来满足需求和提高自身福祉。研究人类对生态系统服务的需求、消费,分析生态系统服务的供给与需求关系,对生态系统的管理、土地发展规划和资源的合理有效配置具有重要意义。首先分析了生态系统服务需求、供给和消费的内涵与特征,辨析了生态系统服务的有效需求和潜在需求、有效供给与潜在供给,进而提出了生态系统服务需求与供给研究框架,指出应研究生态系统服务供给和需求的空间关联以及生态系统服务需求弹性差异,进而因地制宜地调控生态系统服务供给使得生态系统服务效用最大化。梳理并比较了对生态系统服务供给和需求的量化指标和研究方法,包括基于土地利用和土地覆被的生态系统服务供需关系矩阵法、生态足迹法、公众参与法、模型计算法等。提出了未来的相关研究主要应从不同群体的需求弹性差异、跨学科与多源数据结合的需求定量评估方法、供需关系的多尺度分析、生态系统服务需求与人类福祉的耦合机制拓展等方面展开,为生态系统服务调控管理和社会的可持续发展提供切实可行的科学依据。