Measuring Sustainable Development at the Lower Regional Level in the Czech Republic based on Composite Indicators

Abstract

Measuring of sustainable development seems to be a great issue as there is neither unified set of indicators nor any preferred methodology how to do it. However, attempts to evaluate entities from the point of view of sustainable development regularly occur. The most problematic level according to sustainable development assessment seems to be "lower" regional level, such as LAU 1 (former NUTS 4) level. On one hand there are usually at this level already serious problems with data availability, on the other hand it is almost impossible to regularly perform detailed questionnaire surveys in all LAU 1 regions (77 districts in case of the Czech Republic), as it is done e.g. in cities. The aim of the paper is to decide, how to assess sustainability at this level. Finally we chose useful indicators, though different from indicators used at the national or NUTS 3 level, with data available for all LAU 1 regions. We succeeded in filling all three pillars of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) with sufficient number of suitable indicators. In the first step we applied cluster analysis to find coherences among regions that are e.g. affected by similar problems. After that we constructed composite indicators in order to create ranking of all 77 districts. Ranking was derived from composite indicator approach. We constructed 10 composite indicators to test different methods of normalisation, weighting and aggregation. The results show the ranking of LAU 1 regions in the Czech Republic from the sustainability point of view, both including and excluding capital city of Prague as an outlying district. A good interconnection between cluster analysis and constructed composite indicators can be seen, which is supported by the discussion of the results.

Measuring Urban Sustainability over Time at National and Regional Scale for Addressing United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: Iran and Tehran as Case Studies

“…This approach advocates a kind of development that considers the basic needs of future and present generations, simultaneously [3,10]. The main idea of this approach is to balance economic development, social equality, and accountability to the environment [11]. Having said that, the major focus of sustainable development is not solely on environmental issues but also considers comprehensive subjects [12].…”