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ON SYSTEMS METRICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Citation:
CABEZAS, H. ON SYSTEMS METRICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABILITY. Presented at Sustainable Urban Engineering Seminar Series, Cincinnati, OH, February 02, 2007.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
The concept of sustainability is widely associated with the statement from the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: “… development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs…” Hence, sustainability is about the likelihood of the world persisting in a dynamic regime that is supportive of human society. But without at least semi-quantitative means of measuring progress in a meaningful manner, it is difficult to implement any sustainability strategy in any practical sense. There is, therefore, a need for sustainability metrics 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 are or are not efficacious in maintaining the system in a humanly desirable regime. Unfortunately, all sustainability questions are embedded in a complex and interacting system that has many dimensions, normally the purview of separate traditional disciplines such as ecology, economics, engineering, and others. While we might never fully understand such a complex system, there is an immediate need for scientifically sound measures that can guide environmental management actions. Here we examine and contrast some of the ideas and 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, resilience, and the IPAT index. From the economics perspective we examine Net National Product and the concepts of weak and strong sustainability and steady state economics. We then discuss emergy and exergy from the perspective of energy use efficiency and natural energy resources. We lastly consider in detail order in dynamic systems as a fundamental property of well-functioning biological and social systems. These metrics capture different characteristics that are important to sustainability. Lastly, the outline of a possible management strategy on a regional scale using these concepts and metrics will be discussed.