Urban environment quality assessment by using composite index model

Abstract

Urban environments are often subject to many challenges, which make it very difficult to assess sustainability performance of urbanization. Indexing can be an appropriate systematic tool for sustainability assessment in sophisticated decision‐making situations involving simultaneous consideration of multiple qualitative and quantitative factors. In this study, a systems approach was adopted to develop a composite index called SUQCI (Sustainable Urban Quality Composite Index) in order to assess the potential of a city to become sustainable. The index is composed of 10 components containing a total number of 16 indicators. According to which, the 22 districts of Tehran City were compared in terms of sustainability of urban environment quality. The obtained results indicated that the Districts 1, 2, and 3 are in ideal sustainability conditions. These areas are among prosperous places of the city. About 59.09% of all districts were below the average SUQCI. The Districts 18 and 19 with the SUQCI values of 0.21 and 0.25 remain in critical condition. In overall, a great injustice in distribution of sustainability components is observed in Tehran so that unsustainable urban environment becomes more evident in underserved areas of the city. In recent years, increasing attempts have been made to overcome the injustice. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 1473–1480, 2015

Indicadores de calidad ambiental urbana: Una revisión

“…En este sentido, Ávila (2019) afirma que las acciones de mitigación y adaptación llevadas a cabo en el contexto urbano desempeñan una función crucial para combatir la problemática ambiental global desde lo local, considerando el resultado del análisis ambiental previo. De tal manera que los indicadores se constituyen como herramienta de monitoreo y elementos clave para determinar la sustentabilidad en las regiones, así como los parámetros críticos que la afectan (Hîncu, 2011;Ruiz et al, 2011;Robati et al, 2015;Alvira, 2018).…”

“…Tiburcio y Perevochtchikova (2012) afirman que la generación de indicadores ambientales a escala urbana propicia una acertada cultura de rendición de cuentas y de evaluación de desempeño y además son el primer paso para determinar no solamente los niveles de sustentabilidad de estas zonas (Robati et al, 2015) sino también fomentan la visibilización de la situación y realidad de los procesos locales (Turcu, 2013) de tal manera que resulta evidente la importancia especial de la generación de información a esta escala de medición.…”

“…Indicador compuesto de Calidad Ambiental Urbana para Teherán. En el Oriente Medio, Robati et al (2015) estudiaron 10 componentes con 16 indicadores y mediante una decisión tomada a partir del método Delphi se priorizaron las variables: tiempo y clima; agua y aguas residuales; y transporte y energía.…”

An Empirical Study of the Assessment of Green Development in Beijing, China: Considering Resource Depletion, Environmental Damage and Ecological Benefits Simultaneously

“…For example, the urban metabolism concept was proposed to explain the dynamics of developing sustainable cities [15], and in addition to assessing cities from the perspective of material flow, the perspectives of ecology, the water footprint or other ecological footprints are considered part of the spatial dimension of environmental sustainability [16]. Based on the characterization of the system, different methods, techniques and instruments for the assessment of urban sustainability have emerged over time to help determine how cities can become more sustainable [17]. For example, using Jining City as a case study, Li (2009) [3] developed the Full Permutation Polygon Synthetic Indicator method by selecting 52 indicators from 4 categories, economic growth and efficiency, ecological and infrastructure construction, environmental protection, and social progress and welfare, in order to evaluate the capacity for urban sustainability.…”

“…For example, using Jining City as a case study, Li (2009) [3] developed the Full Permutation Polygon Synthetic Indicator method by selecting 52 indicators from 4 categories, economic growth and efficiency, ecological and infrastructure construction, environmental protection, and social progress and welfare, in order to evaluate the capacity for urban sustainability. Robati (2015) [17] defined a composite index of 10 components consisting of 16 indicators, called SUQCI, to assess the potential of a city to become sustainable, and the results showed that unsustainable urban environments are more evident in the underserved areas of a city. Cai (2009) [18] established an assessment system with 5 subsystems (economy, society, population, resources, and the environment) and 37 indicators to evaluate sustainable urban development using a principal component analysis and then analyzed the variation among these five subsystems.…”