scholarly journals Conceptual frameworks for urban sustainability indicators - an empirical analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pekka Halla ◽  
Albert Merino-Saum
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Normative Power ◽  
Complex Concept ◽  
Urban Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Indicator Sets

Indicator-based assessment represents a popular means of operationalizing the concept of sustainability. A central yet often neglected aspect in the development of indicator sets concerns the elaboration of accompanying conceptual frameworks. Despite the pivotal role that such frameworks play, and the normative power they wield, little explicit guidance exists for their development. To address this issue, we analyze an extensive sample of conceptual frameworks drawn from 67 urban indicator initiatives. The results of the analysis elaborate an empirically-based typology of four principal and two emerging framework types, each based on a particular logic for creating conceptual categories for urban sustainability indicators. We also develop a comparison of the framework types in terms of their respective abilities to meet the different purposes that conceptual frameworks ideally serve in indicator set development. The results allow us to provide much-needed guidance for indicator set developers; first, by laying out the range of options available; second, by helping developers choose between types of frameworks in accordance with their particular aims. In addition, through analysis of how urban sustainability is de facto defined in indicator initiatives, we aim to make a conceptual contribution that advances our understanding of the meaning of this complex concept.

scholarly journals A Framework for Measuring Urban Sustainability in an Emerging Region: The City of Duhok as a Case Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 5402
Author(s):  
Azad Hassan ◽  
Zeenat Kotval-K
Keyword(s):  
General Trend ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Sustainable Practices ◽  
Urban Policies ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sustainability Indicators

The City of Duhok in Iraq, as one of the Kurdistan Region’s (KR) main cities, is concerned about sustainability but lacks the measures to guide urban policies. This study bridges this gap and offers an example of the use of urban sustainability indicators in an emerging region that experiences rapid urbanization and growth. The substantial objective of this study was to develop a functional framework of indicators to assess and measure urban sustainability for the city after KR’s declaration of autonomy in 1991 until 2010. That is, we limited our investigation to examining previous research, which decisively contains the approach to “measuring urban sustainability”. The study followed a three-step approach to examine urban sustainability as an integration of a few other relevant studies. The study concluded with two facts: First, the lack of progress on urban sustainability in the first decades resulted from the destabilized era that left the city administratively fragmented. Second, the political and economic watershed led to steady progress towards urban sustainability post-2005. The study highlights nine urban sustainability indicators, from a total of 39 indicators, that played an important role in navigating the general trend of urban sustainability in the city and how they can be used to promote future sustainable practices.

Sustainable and inclusive – Evaluating urban sustainability indicators’ suitability for measuring progress towards SDG-11

2020 ◽  
pp. 239980832097540
Author(s):  
Ryan Thomas ◽  
Angel Hsu ◽  
Amy Weinfurter
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Sustainable Development Goal ◽  
Data Repositories ◽  
Development Goal ◽  
Urban Sustainability Indicators

The adoption of the sustainable development goals marks a transition in the global sustainability discourse to a growing focus on equity, with urban areas’ role in achieving sustainable and inclusive growth more explicit in sustainable development goal-11. Within this discourse, urban sustainability indicators could be used to monitor environmental quality and equity within individual cities, while promising to deepen our understanding of how urban areas contribute to global environmental sustainability. We examine 484 indicators of urban and regional environmental sustainability sourced from 40 indexes and online data repositories to determine their suitability for measuring both urban environmental performance and equity. Despite the large number of existing indicators related to urban environmental monitoring, we find that they are inadequate as tools for evaluating progress towards sustainable development goal-11’s integrated goal of sustainable and inclusive (i.e. equitable) urban areas, due to a lack of benchmarks, targets, and explicit measurement of equity considerations. Future research should emphasize data collection that can be disaggregated geographically to make it possible to measure distributional equity and establish locally appropriate benchmarks and realistic targets for urban sustainability indicators. Lastly, we argue that utilizing large-scale, high-resolution datasets has the potential to help overcome these data collection challenges.

Localising urban sustainability indicators: The CEDEUS indicator set, and lessons from an expert-driven process

Cities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
pp. 102683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Steiniger ◽  
Elizabeth Wagemann ◽  
Francisco de la Barrera ◽  
María Molinos-Senante ◽  
Rodrigo Villegas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Urban Sustainability Indicators
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