Application of a Participatory Ex Ante Assessment Model for Environmental Governance and Visualizing Sustainable Redevelopment in Gorj County, Romania

Abstract

This chapter presents an approach for the development of a decision-support process for sustainable development planning. The Indicator Scoring System (ISS) incorporates the ex ante assessment of environmental, infrastructure, economic, and social impacts of proposed projects, and links these assessments with a geospatial model of sustainable development potential. The overall process is designed to encourage public participation, provide unbiased quantitative and qualitative evaluation, integrate agency database compilation, and provide data analysis tools/techniques and viewing applications. The ultimate goal is to facilitate a process under which local authorities, governments, and international organizations, are able to visualize sustainable development initiatives as well as coordinate and evaluate their own independent activities. Sustainable development tools that are well integrated with decision-making processes and valued by decision-makers will contribute to the implementation of the objectives of sustainable development.