Development of a multidisciplinary approach to assess regional sustainability

Abstract

There are a number of established, scientifically supported metrics of sustainability. Many of the metrics are data-intensive and require extensive effort to collect data and compute the metrics. Moreover, individual metrics do not capture all aspects of a system that are relevant to sustainability. A pilot project was initiated to create an approach to measure, monitor, and maintain prosperity and environmental quality of a regional system. The goal was to produce a straightforward, inexpensive methodology that is simple to use and interpret. This requires historical data be readily accessible, metrics must be applicable to the relevant scale, and results must meet the needs of decision-makers. Because sustainability is a multidimensional concept, the research group consisted of a multidisciplinary team that identified the major components of an environmental system. We selected metrics to capture the multidimensionality of sustainability in environmental systems and included: (1) emergy to capture the quality-normalized flow of energy through the system; (2) ecological footprint to capture the impact of humans on the system; (3) green net regional product to estimate human prosperity and well being within the system; and (4) Fisher information to capture the dynamic order of the system. We were able to compute metrics for a test geographic region using existing datasets. Preliminary analysis indicates that each metric reveals a somewhat different trend. These preliminary findings support the idea that characterization of sustainability requires a multidisciplinary approach and demonstrate the need to measure multiple aspects of an environmental system.

Keywords:

• metrics
• time series
• emergy
• ecological footprint
• green net regional product
• Fisher information

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Ray Bennett for his estimation of the water balance model for the Rio Grande River Basin and Richard Sparks for his help estimating wind erosion for the SLB. We also thank Rafael Weston for his helpful comments. Detailed results will be available upon request. The views expressed herein are strictly the opinions of the authors and in no manner represent or reflect current or planned policy by the federal agencies. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.

Notes

^†Present address: Sustainable Environments Branch, Sustainable Technology Division, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH, USA.

This work was authored as part of the Contributors' official duties as Employees of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.