A Spatial Regional Reference Framework for Sustainability Assessment in Europe

Top-down and Europe-wide versus bottom-up and intra-regional identification of key issues for sustainability impact assessment

“…Using cluster analysis of the freely accessible data on environmental, social and economic issues derived from the EU-27 member states (Commission of the European Communities, 2005). Renetzeder et al (2008) separated 27 regions with similar characteristics. The Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, and the European Environmental Agencies in Copenhagen, Denmark, aggregated the environmental, social and economic information which can be arranged according to the European Impact Assessment Issues (Table 1).…”

“…A Europe-wide top-down overview was compiled for all countries in the EU-27 (Renetzeder et al, 2008) and for 4 sensitive region types (i) postindustrial regions, (ii) mountains, (iii) coasts and (iv) islands, applying the following 10step protocol: (1) geographical identification of Europe's potentially sensitive post-industrial zones, mountains, coasts and islands at the NUTS levels 2 and 3, (2) the literature review to identify sustainability issues and data sources, (3) assessment of the necessity of collecting complementary data, (4) data collection on key issues in sensitive areas, based on the sustainability impact issues identified by the European Impact Assessment Guidelines, (5) consultation with relevant stakeholders with regard to their view on sustainability issues in sensitive regions throughout Europe, which is particularly relevant for sensitive region types that are underrepresented at the NUTS levels 2 and 3 (e.g., islands), (6) simple web-based questionnaire to collect qualitative and (semi)quantitative data on key sustainability issues, (7) statistical analysis and clustering of sensitive regions based on available indicators to identify classes of post-industrial zones, mountains, coasts and islands with similar environmental, social and economic characteristics, (8) generation and interpretation of maps with key issues of sensitive regions; here the most sensitive regions were delineated, (9) drafting of sub-survey reports, and compilation into a final report, and (10) integrated and comparative analysis of key sustainability issues across sensitive-area types and against a 'regular' standard, e.g., European average (Dilly et al, 2008). The bottom-up intra-regional resolution level procedure was essentially done with the same protocol.…”

Nachhaltige Landnutzung durch vorausschauende Politik

“…Um den regionalen Vergleich zu erleichtern, wurde für die Berechnungen in Sensor ein räumli-ches regionales Referenzsystem gewählt, das aus 534 NUTS Einheiten, einer Klassifizierung auf europäischer Ebene zum statistischen Vergleich von Regionen, bestand, die wiederum in 30 Cluster zusammengefasst wurden (Renetzeder et al 2008).…”

Key sustainability issues and the spatial classification of sensitive regions in Europe

“…In contrast to this approach with paying special attention to pre-defined sensitive regions, the clustering of the entire European 581 NUTSx cells in the Spatial Regional Reference Framework (SRRF, Renetzeder et al, 2008) separated approximately 30 clusters by using biophysical, socioeconomic and administrative parameters. However, the SRRF clusters may not match to the separated sensitive classes and thus policy measures to be applied in sensitive regions may refer to other regions than to be applied to SRRF classes.…”

“…7. Cluster 2600 NEMFOR (Renetzeder et al 2008) includes Nemoral regions in Sweden Estonia, Finland, Latvia. Large parts are lowlands (> 80%) or hills (<20%), parent material is formed by different sediments.…”