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SYSTEMS METRICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Citation:
CABEZAS, H. SYSTEMS METRICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABILITY. Presented at U.S. EPA Region 2, Caribbean Environmental Protection Division, San Juan, PUERTO RICO, April 03 - 05, 2006.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
The concept of sustainability is often associated with the statement from the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: "... development that meets the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future ...". Hence, sustainability is mainly a question about the likelihood of the world persisting in dynamic regimes that are supportive of human society. In this context, the need for sustainability metrics arises to provide quantitative measures that assess the degree to which the system is or is not in a desirable regime, and whether management actions taken with the objective of keeping the system in the particular desirable regime are or are not efficacious. Unfortunately, all sustainability questions are embedded in a complex and interacting system that has many dimensions falling within the realm of various traditional disciplines such as ecology, economics, engineering, etc. Here we examine and contrast some of the metrics that science has to offer for use in sustainable environmental management from the perspective of biology, economics, physics and engineering. The list is topical rather than inclusive. Hence, from the biological perspective we consider carrying capacity, maximum sustainable yield, and the IPAT index. From the economics perspective we examine Net National Product. We then discuss emergy and exergy from the perspective of physical science and engineering. These metrics capture different characteristics that are important to sustainability. In addition, several other concepts have been developed to understand and clarify the complexity inherent in natural and man-made systems. In this category, we discuss resilience, "weak" and "strong" sustainability, steady state economics, and order in complex systems. Lastly, an outline of a possible management strategy focused on the island of Puerto Rico using these concepts and metrics will be discussed.