An interdisciplinary study on indicators: A comparative review of quality-of-life, macroeconomic, environmental, welfare and sustainability indicators

Pissourios, Ioannis A.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.06.008

Cited by 96 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…At the same time, from a social perspective, there has been a long-standing argument that people living in dense urban cities may have a lower quality of life (QoL) and are less happy or less satisfied with their lives than those living in the suburbs, based on city and regional data sets [11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. QoL has been widely considered to be an important indicator for social sustainability [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26], and is a multidimensional concept that has been assessed and quantified using a number of objective and subjective indicators across various research communities. In the social science and urban/community planning fields, life satisfaction and happiness are often used as indicators of subjective QoL [18][19][20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Satisfaction of Downtown High-Rise vs. Suburban Low-Rise Living: A Chicago Case Study

Wood

Ditchman

et al. 2017

Sustainability

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There has been a long-standing debate about whether urban living is more or less sustainable than suburban living, and quality of life (QoL) is one of several key measures of the social sustainability of residential living. However, to our knowledge, no study to date has examined life satisfaction among residents of downtown high-rise living compared to residents living in suburban low-rise housing. Further, very few studies have utilized building or neighborhood-scale data sets to evaluate residents' life satisfaction, and even fewer have controlled for both individual and household-level variables such as gender, age, household size, annual income, and length of residence, to evaluate residents' life satisfaction across different living scenarios. Therefore, the goal of this study was to investigate residents' satisfaction with their place of residence as well as overall life in general via surveys of individuals living in existing high-rise residential buildings in downtown Chicago, IL, and in existing low-rise residential buildings in suburban Oak Park, IL. Over 1500 individuals were contacted directly, resulting in over 500 responses. The number of fully completed responses for this study was 177, including 94 from residents of four downtown high-rise buildings and 83 from residents in suburban low-rise homes. Residents living in downtown high-rise buildings had significantly higher life satisfaction scores than residents living in suburban low-rise homes when controlling for demographic differences; however, the differences were small, as housing type explained less than 5% of the observed variance in life satisfaction outcomes. The research also evaluated five life satisfaction domains including travel, accessibility, social interaction, safety, and overall residential environment (ORE). In all cases, residents of the downtown high-rises reported higher satisfaction levels, although the scores on all these five satisfaction domains reported from both urban scenarios were very high. Moreover, all five satisfaction domains were highly associated with each other, and accessibility and safety were found as the strongest predictors of ORE for individuals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Satisfaction of Downtown High-Rise vs. Suburban Low-Rise Living: A Chicago Case Study

Wood

Ditchman

et al. 2017

Sustainability

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“…Given that the use of the league (Brown, 2006) it is nonetheless a powerful vehicle for highlighting differences between countries and is widely employed for a variety of indices (Pissourios, 2013) such as the Ecological Footprint (EF) and Environmental Performance Index (EPI) The HDI is a very simplified index in the sense that it only has three elements and the CPI is based on perception of corruption derived from a rather specific group rather than being an empirical measure (Donchev and Ujhelyi, 2014), and there is a danger that these nuances may well be lost within media reports that focus on ranks based on the indices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much effort has been placed into the development and promotion of indicators and indices (where an index is an amalgam of indicators) as tools to help achieve the goal of sustainable development (Pissourios, 2013), and this is likely to accelerate with the recent (2016) publication of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; Hák et al, 2016) and the growing interest in the 'planetary boundaries' concept (Steffen et al, 2015). The Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was arguably a significant catalyst for this effort to create and promote sustainable development indicators but even prior to that date there had much emphasis on indices such as the Human Development Index (HDI) as well as more specialised indicators and indices such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and ShannonWiener Index of Biodiversity (H) in the realms of economics and ecology respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Focussing on the Extremes of Good and Bad: Media Reporting of Countries Ranked Via Index-Based League Tables

Morse

2017

Soc Indic Res

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The paper provides the first published evidence for a 'U' shaped relationship between country 'league-table' ranking based on the Human Development Index (HDI) and Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and media reporting. The results suggest that the Extremity Hypothesis proposed by Heath (1996) applies to such data rather than the alternative of the Centrality Hypothesis. In the Extremity Hypothesis people are more likely to transmit information regarding extremes, perhaps because people value 'surprisingness' or think that others do so, and the inevitable polarity of league-tables would appear to invite greater attention on those countries that rank high and low. This is an important finding as it suggests that countries at these extremes could act as exemplars. However, this is not to say that at more regional scales the media may pick-up on differences between 'peer group' countries ranked towards the middle of the league-table. Much more attention needs to be given by researchers to the use of indicators and indices and what helps to influence this, especially as it would help inform further development of existing indicators/indices and the creation of new ones.

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“…This could be a reason why the embedding of DPSIR within a more holistic approach, in particular including socio-economic and governance aspects, has been pursued Based on the short historical descriptions of the DPSIR framework, its applications, and the critiques following its application, it looks as though DPSIR was initially proposed as a conceptual view, rather than as a practical guidance. Most remarks that emerge from the different versions of this 'disturbance chain' deal with addressing only socio-economic drivers, oversimplification, or the exclusion of system dynamics, and its linear, unidirectional, and noncyclic causal chain (see [10,12,13,15,19,[21][22][23][24]). To become more practical, the linear DPSIR approach should evolve towards a ramified structure with feedback loops, if possible, applicable at different levels of governance.…”

Section: Dpsir As An Analytical Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using DPSIR and Balances to Support Water Governance

Vannevel

2018

Water

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Abstract:The DPSIR framework has proven to be an effective communication tool, but has become subject to criticism upon increasing practical application. It is assumed that this is the consequence of the combination of terminological unclarity, absence of a methodological description for analyzing disturbances, and a confined conceptual basis when dealing with complex environmental issues. DPSIR has been embedded within the broader conceptual Pentatope Model (PTM), by making use of an 'interface' called GASI. GASI, which means Governance by Actor-Subject Impact Assessment, deals explicitly with governance as a framework and impact analysis as a process. The result is an extended version of DPSIR. Illustrated by means of a water balance, the importance of a combined PTM-GASI-DPSIR tool for impact assessments to support evidence-based governance is shown.

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An interdisciplinary study on indicators: A comparative review of quality-of-life, macroeconomic, environmental, welfare and sustainability indicators

Cited by 96 publications

References 40 publications

Life Satisfaction of Downtown High-Rise vs. Suburban Low-Rise Living: A Chicago Case Study

Life Satisfaction of Downtown High-Rise vs. Suburban Low-Rise Living: A Chicago Case Study

Focussing on the Extremes of Good and Bad: Media Reporting of Countries Ranked Via Index-Based League Tables

Using DPSIR and Balances to Support Water Governance

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