Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Spatial Entities with Anthropogenic Activities-Evaluation of Existing Methods
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Methodology of Literature Search
3. Assessment of Selected Methods
- Take into account the particular spatial characteristics of the anthropogenic spatial entity under consideration and be able to evaluate its progress over time.
- Enhance decision-making on promoting desired actions that improve sustainability and the possibility of adding new activities within the administrative boundaries of the spatial entity.
- Establish sustainability reference benchmarks.
- Ensure an adequate balance between the level of complexity and the coverage of key sustainability issues.
- Emphasize clearly and minimize assumptions and weaknesses that arise during its development.
- Be appropriate for comparisons.
- Ensure that it can be modified to incorporate other aspects of sustainability or that it can be combined with other methods to implement a more comprehensive assessment.
4. Results and Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Exclusion Criterion | Methods Excluded and a Brief Description of their Exclusion | References | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Proven quality of references | (1) The method “Two Synthetic Environmental Indices” was excluded due to insufficient data for its analysis. | [11] |
2 | Ability to simultaneously evaluate various anthropogenic activities | (2) The method “Sustainability/Environmental Rating Systems” was excluded because it is focused on the evaluation of Construction Industry. | [9] |
(3) The method “Environmental Performance Index” was excluded because it is focused on the evaluation of human health. | [11] | ||
3 | Holistic evaluation at local level (region, municipality) | Methods 4 to 19 were excluded because they are developed to assess specific projects: | |
(4) Environmental Quality Index; | [11] | ||
(5) Cost–Benefit Analysis; | [5,9,10,17] | ||
(6) Multicriteria Analysis; | [5,9,10,17] | ||
(7) Full Cost Accounting; | [10] | ||
(8) Sustainability Assessment Modeling; | [10] | ||
(9) Environmental, Social, and Economic Impact Analysis; | [9] | ||
(10) Analysis Network Process; | [9] | ||
(11) Environmental Impact Assessment; | [5,17] | ||
(12)EU Sustainability Impact Assessment; | [17] | ||
(13)Strategic Environmental Assessment; | [9,17] | ||
(14) Material Intensity per Service Unit; | [5] | ||
(15) Risk Analysis; | [5] | ||
(16) Conceptual Modeling; | [5] | ||
(17) System Dynamics; | [5] | ||
(18) Uncertainty Analysis; | [5] | ||
(19) Vulnerability analysis. | [5] | ||
Methods 20 to 29 were excluded because they are only implemented on a national scale: | |||
(20) UNCSD 58; | [5] | ||
(21) Sustainable National Income; | [5] | ||
(22) Adjusted Net Saving (Genuine Saving); | [5] | ||
(23) Wellbeing Index; | [5] | ||
(24) Genuine Progress Indicator and Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare; | [5,17] | ||
(25) Human Development Index; | [5,17] | ||
(26) Environmental Sustainability Index; | [11] | ||
(27) Environment Sustainability Index; | [11] | ||
(28) Environmental Policy Performance Indicator; | [11] | ||
(29) Ecosystem Health Assessment. | [2] | ||
4 | Focus on the sustainable aspect of environmental performance | Methods 30 to 39 were excluded because they mainly assess public concern about the environmental impact of projects or activities: | |
(30) Concern about Environmental Problems; | [11] | ||
(31) Index of Environmental Friendliness; | [11] | ||
(32) Environmental Vulnerability Index; | [11] | ||
(33) Market prices; | [10] | ||
(34) Benefit transfer; | [10] | ||
(35) Choice modeling; | [10] | ||
(36) Hedonic pricing; | [9,10] | ||
(37) Travel Cost Method; | [9,10] | ||
(38) Contingent Valuation Method; | [9,10] | ||
(39) Community Impact Evaluation. | [9] | ||
5 | Basic idea analysis (when it comes to a family of methods resulting from the extension, improvement, or segmentation of an original method) | Methods 40 to 47 were excluded because they belong to the same family of methods with the method “Ecological Footprint”: | |
(40) Carrying Capacity; | [18] | ||
(41) Natural Resource Availability; | [19] | ||
(42) Carbon Footprint; | [12] | ||
(43) Fossil Fuel Sustainability Index; | [11] | ||
(44) Green Gas Inventory; | [20] | ||
(45) Eco-Index Methodology; | [21] | ||
(46) Sustainable Process Index; | [22] | ||
(47) Energy Footprint. | [23] | ||
(48) The method “Ecological Network Analysis” was excluded because it is developed in the same basic idea with the method “Physical Input–Output Tables”. | [13] |
Method | Description of Method | |
---|---|---|
Indicators/Indices | ||
1.1 | Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs) | The SDIs consist a specific range of indicators for sustainable development, which have been developed according to the Driving Force-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework, in order to support the stakeholders to evaluate the effectiveness of the policy on the way to sustainable development [8,25]. |
1.2 | Environmental Pressure Indicators (EPIs) | The EPIs have been developed by Eurostat and consist of sixty (60) indicators, six (6) for each of the ten (10) policy areas according to the 5th Environmental Action Program [26]. |
1.3 | The Dashboard of Sustainability (DoS) | The DoS method is a mathematical and graphical tool, designed to integrate the complex implications of sustainability and to support the decision-making process at nation level with the generation of brief evaluations. The tool evaluates indicators relative to environmental protection, economic development and social improvement [27]. |
1.4 | Quality of Life (QoL) | The method is based on trends and conditions related to indicators such as crime, participation in cultural activities, health, education, income, unemployment, water quality, air pollution and the proportion of unstructured areas, assessing the relevant areas of "Quality of Life" [28]. |
Resource Availability Assessment | ||
2.1 | Ecological Footprint (EF) | The Ecological Footprint [29] expresses «the theoretical area (in global hectares) which is used by humans to produce the resources they consume, and to absorb the waste generated (including CO2 emissions from energy consumption)”. |
2.2 | Water Footprint (WF) | The WF method [30] is based on the calculation of the “total volume of fresh water required to meet the direct and/or indirect needs of the entity under consideration». |
2.3 | Wellbeing Assessment (WA) | The method has been developed by the World Conservation Union for its use at various levels of spatial entities. This is a holistic approach to evaluating sustainability using plenty of indicators, covering all parts of the entity [31]. |
Material and Energy Flow Analysis | ||
3.1 | Material Flow Analysis (MFA) | The MFA method is used to determine the material and energy balance of an entity. This method is mostly implemented at national level due to the easy access to the required data and the existence of a methodological framework developed by Eurostat [32]. |
3.2 | Substance Flow Analysis (SFA) | The SFA method [33,34] aims at the control of the flows of substances (chemicals and/or compounds) that contain significant levels of concern about their impact on ecological and human health in their production and use. |
3.3 | Physical Input–Output Tables (PIOT) | The methods study the direct and indirect flows of an entity, applying the principle of mass conservation. Especially, the PIOT considers the environment as a source of raw materials and a “sink” of the residuals of the production processes of an economy [35]. |
3.4 | Emergy Analysis (EMA) | The EMA [36] method is used to measure “the work previously done by nature and/or man that contributed to the realization of a product or service”. The energy required is expressed as the sum of the individual types of energy, expressed as a final form of energy, usually solar energy (expressed in emjoules). |
3.5 | Exergy Analysis (EXA) | The EXA method [37] is used to measure “the maximum equivalent mechanical work that can be derived from a system when it tends to a thermodynamic equilibrium state compared with a reference system. The application of the method allows the definition and evaluation of the flows that contain exergy (so it is possible to be further exploited) or where it is completely lost (so it has to be further analyzed) [38]. |
Life-Cycle Assessment | ||
4.1 | Life-Cycle Sustainability Analysis (LCSA) | The Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is mostly applied to assess and evaluate product sustainability. However, Guinée et al. [39] proposed a new framework, namely Life-Cycle Sustainability Analysis, which extends the scope of analysis from product-related to economic issues, including an intermediate level, like anthropogenic spatial entities. |
Evaluation Criteria | Categorization of Methods | Criterion Average | Question Score | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 Indicators/Indices | 2 Resource Availability Assessment | 3 Material and Energy Flow Analysis | 4 Life-Cycle Assessment | ||||||||||||
1.1 SDI | 1.2 EPI | 1.3 DoS | 1.4 QoL | 2.1 EF | 2.2 WF | 2.3 WA | 3.1 MFA | 3.2 SFA | 3.3 PIOT | 3.4 EmA | 3.5 ExA | 4.1 LCSA | |||
Criterion 1: Ability to assess environmental sustainability holistically | 2.3 | ||||||||||||||
Q.1.1: Do methods assess more than one sector? | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | 13 | |
Q.1.2: Do methods assess an adequate number of environmental issues? | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | Y | 7 | |
Q.1.3: Do methods promote energy and resource efficiency? | Y | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | 10 | |
Score per criterion | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | ||
Average Score of each category | 2 | 2.7 | 2.2 | 3 | |||||||||||
Criterion 2: Ability to help decision making | 1.3 | ||||||||||||||
Q.2.1: Can methods communicate their results to public? | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | 7 | |
Q.2.2: Can methods answer to the potential addition of a new activity; | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 | |
Q.2.3: Can methods identify specific environmental “hot spots” of the spatial entity? | Y | Y | Υ | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | N | 10 | |
Score per criterion | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
Average Score of each category | 2 | 2 | 0.6 | 0 | |||||||||||
Criterion 3: Potential for benchmarking | 1.3 | ||||||||||||||
Q.3.1: Can methods aggregate the results into single scores? | N | Y | N | N | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | 8 | |
Q.3.2: Do methods include specific thresholds/targets of sustainable performance? | Y | N | N | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | Y | N | 4 | |
Q.3.3: Can methods be applied/updated to compare overall sustainability? | Y | N | Y | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | N | 5 | |
Score per criterion | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||
Average Score of each category | 1.5 | 1.7 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||
Criterion 4:Applicability and ease of use | 1.7 | ||||||||||||||
Q.4.1: Can methods be easily applied by nonexperts? | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | 6 | |
Q.4.2: Can methods be easily applied by local government (data/cost involved)? | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | 5 | |
Q.4.3: Do methods include clear guidelines of implementation (freely available)? | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | 11 | |
Score per criterion | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
Average Score of each category | 2.5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||
Criterion 5:Integration of spatial and temporal characteristics | 2.1 | ||||||||||||||
Q.5.1: Do methods integrate physical and anthropogenic characteristics? | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | 9 | |
Q.5.2: Do methods assess environmental sustainability at local level? | Y | N | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | 10 | |
Q.5.3: Are methods able to evaluate progress over time? | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | Y | N | 7 | |
Score per criterion | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | ||
Average Score of each category | 1.5 | 3 | 2.2 | 1 | |||||||||||
Total Score of each method | 11 | 8 | 8 | 11 | 13 | 9 | 11 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 8.6 | |
Average Score of each category | 9.5 | 11 | 7 | 6 | |||||||||||
Y: YES and N: NO |
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Aktsoglou, D.; Gaidajis, G. Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Spatial Entities with Anthropogenic Activities-Evaluation of Existing Methods. Sustainability 2020, 12, 2680. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072680
Aktsoglou D, Gaidajis G. Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Spatial Entities with Anthropogenic Activities-Evaluation of Existing Methods. Sustainability. 2020; 12(7):2680. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072680
Chicago/Turabian StyleAktsoglou, Despoina, and Georgios Gaidajis. 2020. "Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Spatial Entities with Anthropogenic Activities-Evaluation of Existing Methods" Sustainability 12, no. 7: 2680. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072680