A new class of composite indicators for measuring well-being at the local level: An application to the Equitable and Sustainable Well-being (BES) of the Italian Provinces

Ciommi, Mariateresa; Gigliarano, Chiara; Emili, Alessandra; Taralli, Stefania; Chelli, Francesco

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.12.050

Cited by 74 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Although simplified and exploratory in its aims and scope, our proposal has the advantage of exploiting official statistics that are widely diffused in both advanced economies and emerging countries, thus contributing with a spatial approach in the field of resilience assessment in local socioeconomic systems. Future research should integrate the results of spatially explicit frameworks delineating more sophisticated approaches to regional demography by investigating the complex linkage between socioeconomic resilience and demographic dynamics more deeply and better characterizing the intrinsic profile of socioeconomic systems with different levels of demographic resilience [143]. Geo-referenced datasets with updated census information covering adequately long time windows are the necessary requisite of such investigations [144].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographic Resilience in Local Systems: An Empirical Approach with Census Data

Colantoni

Hälbac-Cotoară-Zamfir

Halbac‐Cotoara‐Zamfir

et al. 2020

Systems

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This study estimates demographic resilience in local socioeconomic systems of Southern Europe using long-term population dynamics. We assume attractive places with a continuously expanding (resident) population as ‘demographically resilient’, and locations experiencing a persistent decline of population as more fragile to external shocks. Based on these premises, a comprehensive assessment of demographic resilience in more than 1000 municipalities along the urban–rural gradient in Greece, a Mediterranean country with marked regional disparities, was carried out between 1961 and 2011. Municipalities were considered representative of homogeneous local communities, especially in rural areas. The results of non-parametric correlations suggest how basic geographical gradients (coastal–inland and urban–rural) have significantly influenced the demographic resilience of Greek municipalities. These findings outline two contrasting spatial patterns that reflect (i) continuous expansion of peri-urban local communities and (ii) a particularly intense rural shrinkage, linking depopulation to land abandonment and scarce accessibility of inland districts. While long-term population growth in Greece has progressively re-shaped the intrinsic divide in urban and rural areas, the traditional gap in central and peripheral districts is still reflected in the spatial polarization between the ‘demographically resilient’, socially dynamic coastal locations and the ‘demographically fragile’ inland, economically marginal places. These results indicate the persistence of a center–periphery model characterizing long-term settlement expansion in Greece, with spatial patterns delineating ‘resilient’ and ‘fragile’ districts based essentially on infrastructures, accessibility, and amenities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographic Resilience in Local Systems: An Empirical Approach with Census Data

Colantoni

Hälbac-Cotoară-Zamfir

Halbac‐Cotoara‐Zamfir

et al. 2020

Systems

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“…CI are complex combinations of sometimes several indicators and provide analysts with a powerful tool for investigating-ideally through just one index-many-fold phenomena in nearly all branches of science [2]. In economics, CI have been used for assessing the national economic performance of Switzerland [18], equitable and sustainable well-being in Italy [19], travel and tourism competitiveness worldwide [20], tourist country-brand ranking [1], human development in Europe through a revised weighted release of the well-known Human Development Index (HDI) [3,21], tourism destination competitiveness worldwide [22], and economic development in Iran [23]. In engineering sciences and regional planning, CI have been adopted for studying security of energy supply in the European Union [24], the effectiveness of transit options in Vancouver, Canada [25], the performance of sanitation and hygiene systems in Nicaragua and Honduras [26], the functionality of hydropower plants in Brazil [27], the level of rurality of municipal Italy [28], and the performances of regional planning policies of a sample of Italian municipalities [4].…”

Section: A State-of-the-art Summary On Composite Indicators Design: Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Landscape Fragmentation: A Composite Indicator

et al. 2020

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The assessment and management of landscape fragmentation (LF), i.e., the subdivision of the habitat into smaller and more isolated patches, can benefit from the adoption of a composite indicator explaining, in a unique measure, the various concerns involved. However, the use of composite indicators may be affected by lack of data, subjectivity in algorithm design, and oversimplification connected to reduction to just one index. In these cases, the findings obtained might not provide the researcher with reliable information. In this paper, we design and apply the Composite Indicator of Landscape Fragmentation (CILF), a metric resuming three indicators concerning the effect on LF of transport and mobility infrastructures, human settlements, and patch density per se. The application concerns the measurement of LF spatial pattern and dynamics from 2003 to 2008 of 51 landscape units in the island of Sardinia (Italy). We considered a complete spatial data set, chose the generalized geometric mean as aggregation algorithm, and verified its robustness via sensitivity analysis of the results. We found that, in 2003 and 2008, the CILF spatial pattern shows higher values in coastal areas and has varied randomly, i.e., without a consistent tendency to converge to, or diverge from, a mean value. Overall, we demonstrate that the CILF is a powerful instrument for monitoring LF in Sardinia and advocate that it can be further implemented, following the same methodological framework, by extending the pool of indicators considered and assessing a weighted version of the composite indicator.

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“…The need of measuring the performance of nations has been historically fulfilled by GDP as an indicator of economic activities. Nowadays, the focus on the multiple dimensions of nations' performance requires a shift from GDP towards more comprehensive indicators (Ciommi et al 2017). GDP has been unable to properly take into account the environmental and social impact of economic growth; these aspects have a central role in societal progress, and constitute a central issue in the concept of sustainability (Stiglitz et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Complementary to Ciommi et al (2017), our GS regional analysis shows how unstainable pathways can occur at sub-national level and a variety of factors that can play a role.…”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

Enriching the Italian Genuine Saving with water and soil depletion: National trends and regional differences

Biasi

Ferrini

Borghesi

et al. 2019

Ecological Indicators

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National and international governments aim to promote the responsible management of the natural capital but measuring its contribution to economic growth is still a challenging exercise. The natural capital supports a plurality of environmental functions whereas the economic growth is frequently measured by aggregated indicators. In this paper, we propose an extended version of the Genuine Saving macro indicator to account for water and soil depletion. Further, as natural capital is spatially heterogeneous we estimate Genuine Saving for Italy for the period 2000-2015 at the regional level. Whilst the case study produces specific results for Italy the methodological framework is broadly applicable to other states. The Italian comparison shows that soil and water provide an absolute change of roughly 1% of the GS but average relative regional variations are between 5 and 33% of GDP, showing that the geographical scale of sustainability analysis is a crucial element for responsible management of national assets. The methodological contribution suggests that the Genuine Saving can support policy makers in developing targeted policies for sustainable growth.

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A new class of composite indicators for measuring well-being at the local level: An application to the Equitable and Sustainable Well-being (BES) of the Italian Provinces

Cited by 74 publications

References 14 publications

Demographic Resilience in Local Systems: An Empirical Approach with Census Data

Demographic Resilience in Local Systems: An Empirical Approach with Census Data

Assessing Landscape Fragmentation: A Composite Indicator

Enriching the Italian Genuine Saving with water and soil depletion: National trends and regional differences

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