a Greek case study - Springer Link

Reg Environ Change (2009) 9:209–219 DOI 10.1007/s10113-008-0056-6

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Exploring quality of life concerns in the context of sustainable rural development at the local level: a Greek case study Vassiliki Kazana Æ Angelos Kazaklis

Received: 23 October 2007 / Accepted: 21 July 2008 / Published online: 1 August 2008 Ó Springer-Verlag 2008

Abstract Quality of life concerns in rural development planning and management processes at the local level need to be identified and evaluated through participatory bottom–up approaches. This paper provides an overview of the main issues related to the quality of life concept in the context of rural sustainable development and discusses the need for operational governance models in order to identify, evaluate, and incorporate in action planning quality of life concerns at the local level. Quality of life issues are explored through a governance model applied to a rural Greek case study as part of a sustainable development planning and management process. Keywords Quality of life Governance model Cognitive mapping Participatory sustainable development planning

Introduction Sustainable development is a very popular, although vague and ambiguous concept, which has been adopted by many organizations, governments, and the industry as a basis for an integrative approach to economic policy in the coming

V. Kazana (&) Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management, Technological Education Institute of Kavala, School of Agricultural Technology, 1st km Drama-Mikrohori, 66100 Drama, Greece e-mail: [email protected] A. Kazaklis Centre for Integrated Environmental Management, 39 Androutsou Str., 55132 Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, Greece e-mail: [email protected]

decades (WECD 1987; IUCN/UNEP/WWF 1991; European Commission, 2001). Much literature has been devoted to discuss definitions and express criticisms about sustainable development or sustainability (Clark and Munn 1986; Redclift, 1987; Pearce et al. 1989; Pezzoli 1997; Mebratu 1998; Pearce and Atkinson 1998; Padilla 2002; Robinson 2004). The best-known definition for sustainable development, which is the basis for the context of the work presented in the current paper, is that of the Brundtland Commission stating it as ‘‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, possible to achieve it for the global economy’’. However, an issue of importance from the operational point of view is how sustainable development as a composite policy goal is measured and implemented at all levels in practice (Valentin and Spangenberg 2000; United Nations 2001; Robinson 2004; Kazana et al. 2005; Zidansek, 2007). Agenda 21 has been designed and promoted as an action plan to help measuring and implementing sustainable development in practice (United Nations 2001; Echebarria et al. 2004). In particular, in order to achieve sustainable development at the global level, the Local Agenda 21 process mandates implementation of sustainable development at the local level by encouraging collective responsibility for actions. Two issues of importance are vital for success of any Local Agenda 21. First, local stakeholders need to come together on a common platform, jointly explore the options and decide which actions can meet better their present and future needs (Mehta 1996; Echebarria et al. 2004; Fadeeva 2004; Barrutia et al. 2007). Second, in order to measure progress and distance to targets, as well as success or failure of action implementation, environmental, social, and economic indicators need to be identified and

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used, which are relevant to different spatial scales and levels of detail, understandable and easy to use (Valentin and Spangenberg 2000; Kazana et al. 2005; Kazana et al. 2006). Meeting present and future needs in the context of local sustainability implies addressing concerns of well-being or quality of life. This is because well-being or quality of life in general means the level of human needs met and the extent to which individuals or groups perceive satisfaction or dissatisfaction with this level in different life domains (Marans 2003; Hird 2003; Costanza et al. 2007) such as health, education, family, leisure, financial situation, environment, social relations, and place of residence. There is an apparent link between well-being/quality of life and sustainability, which probably explains why in the ongoing search of useful and understandable indicators for evaluation of sustainability initiatives measuring quality of life is the most appealing particularly at the local level (Wismer 1999; Quality of Life Capital 2001; McMahon 2002; Audit Commission 2005; Bobbitt et al. 2005). However, it is well recognized that more research is still required to better establish the connection between sustainable development and well-being/quality of life (Veenhoven 2002; Gasper 2005; McAllister 2005). Development of sustainability/quality of life indicators has mainly been a top–down approach, as most of the indicators are relevant to national or global scales (Diener 1995; Flynn et al. 2002; McMahon 2002; Economist 2005). However, if quality of life indicators are to be used in sustainable development decision-making, particularly at the local level, development of indicators needs to be: (1) an integrative and meaningful at different spatial scales process, where environmental, social, and economic factors will be considered simultaneously, (2) a systems approach, and (3) an open communication process engaging local communities in many different ways (Quality of Life Capital 2001; Valentin and Spangenberg 2000; Flynn et al. 2002; McMahon 2002; Hird 2003; Robinson 2004; Echebarria et al. 2004; Fadeeva 2004; Kazana et al. 2005; Kazana et al. 2006; Musandu-Nyamayaro 2008). In this context, the current paper presents how through the function of a rural governance model at a local level quality of life concerns were emerged and evaluated to incorporate in development planning. The governance model’s general aim was to help generate and evaluate collectively sustainable development interventions at the local level. This governance model was designed and functioned as a best practice paradigm through GOVERNET, a European funded project under the EU INTERREG III B CADSES Initiative. We report results from the application of this model to a Greek case study. The paper also discusses the operative meaning that can be attached to quality of life attributes through the specific features of the

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applied governance model for local sustainability. Therefore, local planners and decision makers, who are interested in launching similar collaborative efforts in rural areas, can be assisted through the experience gained by the application of this model in relation to quality of life.

Meaning and evaluation of quality of life in the context of sustainable rural development In rural areas, quality of life is playing an increasingly important role with regard to sustainable development and management (Wismer 1999; CPRN 2001; Kazana et al. 2006). This is, as a number of studies have already documented, due to the gradual change many rural areas (including mountains) are undergoing in terms of their economic structure (Deller et al. 2001; Krutilla and Reuveny 2002; Papageorgiou et al. 2005; Kazana et al. 2005). Market-based activities such as agriculture, forestry, livestock, and even manufacturing are giving way to nonmarket natural resource based activities and environmental and recreational services. Quality of life is often confused with standard of living. However, these two concepts are different and not necessarily related (Butler Flora 1998, 1999). The standard of living is connected more to the level of human needs met, while quality of life also involves the extent to which individuals or groups perceive satisfaction or dissatisfaction with this level in different life domains (Marans 2003; McAllister 2005; Costanza et al. 2007). Therefore, one can have a very high standard of living and a low quality of life and vice versa. The overall assessment of human experience has been expressed by the term quality of life across multiple disciplines, including environmental science, economics, sociology, psychology, and medicine. Understanding and evaluating the quality of life in order to enhance it in the sustainability context is a complex task, as the concept of quality of life is multi-dimensional, involving environmental, social, and economic concerns and multi-scale involving both objective and subjective interrelating elements (Diener 1995; McMahon 2002; Marans 2003; Gasper 2005; Bobbitt et al. 2005; Economist 2005; Costanza et al. 2007). In the rural sustainability context in particular this task is even harder as small areas lack statistics and paid off assistance (Wismer 1999; CPRN 2001; Kazana et al. 2006). Two basic research approaches have been published for evaluating the quality of life in general. One focuses on quantifiable socioeconomic indicators to assess the extent to which human needs are met and reflects an objective reality. The UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) and the GDP/capita are ‘‘objective’’ tools for evaluating quality

Exploring quality of life concerns in the context of sustainable rural development

of life (Levett 1998; Deller et al. 2001; Krutilla and Reuveny 2002; Marans 2003; Kowaltowski et al. 2006). The UN’s HDI, a well-established tool at national and international scales, in addition to standard of living measures, such as per capita income and infrastructure development; it includes population, education, health, and political and social stability variables. Therefore, HDI can be used to provide a standard means of measuring wellbeing able to distinguish between developed, developing, and under-developed countries and measure the impacts of economic policies on quality of life. The other approach is based on ‘‘subjective’’ self reported assessments of several domains of peoples’ lives and ‘‘life as a whole’’ and attempt to determine the degree to which a perceived need is being met and the importance of that ‘‘perceived need’’ to a person’s overall quality of life. This approach is known in the relevant literature as ‘‘subjective well-being’’ (Kahnemanet et al. 1999; Schwarz and Strack 1999; Veenhoven 2002; Marans 2003; CPRN 2001; Zidansek 2007; Costanza et al. 2007). The ‘‘objective’’ assessment tools offer an insight on how well physical and socioeconomic needs are met, but they fail to address identity and psychological security issues. The ‘‘subjective wellbeing’’ approach on the other hand suffers from the fact that people usually judge their wellbeing in comparison with other people rather than in absolute terms. In addition, several concerns have been brought to publicity regarding the ambiguity in the meanings of ‘‘objective’’ and ‘‘subjective’’ assessments of quality of life (Veenhoven 2002; Gasper 2005). This is why several authors suggest integrating ‘‘objective’’ and ‘‘subjective’’ assessments of quality of life in order to obtain a complete picture of quality of life at multiple spatial and temporal scales (Marans 2003; Costanza et al. 2007). However, in development planning and management, particularly in the context of sustainability, an issue of concern is not only the ‘‘objective’’ or ‘‘subjective’’ measures included in the quality of life assessments, but also the method of approach, that is top–down or bottom–up, which is used to identify and evaluate these measures, since quality of life is a function of both the level of human needs met and the extent to which individuals or groups are satisfied with this level. Most studies use a top–down approach to develop quality of life indicators particularly at national and global scales (Diener 1995; United Nations 2001; CPRN 2001; Flynn et al. 2002; Economist 2005), which involve both objective and subjective attributes to measure quality of life improvement and sustainability. Fewer studies use a combined top–down and bottom–up approach to develop quality of life indicators at the local level (Audit Commission 2005; Bobbitt et al. 2005) and city level (McMahon 2002), while studies using only bottom–up

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approaches to deal with quality of life indicators at the local level, particularly in rural areas are very limited (Wismer 1999; Quality of Life Capital, 2001; Papageorgiou et al. 2005; Kazana et al. 2006). Moreover, in rural areas in terms of quality of life in the context of sustainable development planning most of the empirical studies investigate the role of quality of life in association with tourism, amenity based development and economic growth (Butler Flora 1998–1999; Deller et al. 2001; Papageorgiou et al. 2005). However, as the concept of quality of life crosses several domains of the people’s lives, bottom–up participative approaches, which engage local communities in integrative, action-oriented, and systematic ways, have better possibilities to build a consensus on the quality of life factors that need to be included in concrete local development actions toward sustainability achievement. Bottom–up approaches can focus on needs and wants of local communities and provide the necessary baseline information to lead actions for improving the quality of life. Studies are also required to explore through such bottom–up approaches the relationship between communities developed quality of life indicators and spatial development patterns. Such knowledge may eventually lead to useful typologies in order to help evaluate local development action impacts in terms of quality of life. In this context, the work presented in this paper advances knowledge by presenting a bottom–up consensus building development planning and management approach in the sustainability context to (1) identify quality of life objective and/or subjective indicators at the local level, (2) secure the greatest possible social agreement on what really matters at the local level in terms of quality of life, (3) link quality of life indicators and the related community needs to be met, (4) evaluate the quality of life indicators with respect to each other and with respect to other sustainable development concerns, (5) provide quality of life indicator based information at the local level as related to specific spatial development patterns, so as to help further similar scientific efforts to finally arrive at a typology of quality of life indicators with respect to specific spatial development patterns, (6) interpret quality of life concerns in the context of sustainability, that is meeting present and future community needs, and (7) incorporate quality of life concerns operationally in the rural sustainable development action planning and management. The following sections present the methodology, which was used to set up and function a governance model at a local level in a rural Greek case study aiming at generating collectively sustainable development initiatives, as well as the results related to the quality of life concerns that were emerged and evaluated to incorporate at a later stage in the planning development process.

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Methodology The GOVERNET governance model was developed as a best practice paradigm through the INTERREG IIIB CADSES EU Initiative with the collaboration of Italian, Greek, and Slovenian and Moldavian partners to support bottom–up participative planning and management of sustainable development interventions in rural areas at the local level. The GOVERNET governance model was implemented in five study areas, three of which were located in Italy and two in Greece. Two main features are important to this model. The first feature is related to the spatial dimension of the model. The planning and evaluation process was spatially referenced to meaningful for the development analyses spatial entities. These entities, mostly not coinciding with administrative borders, were identified and mapped on the basis of the dynamic relationship, which exists between the spatial patterns of natural resources and the socioeconomic activity at any certain location (Kazaklis and Karteris 1993; Papanastasis and Kazaklis 1998; Kazana et al. 2005). Spatial patterns, which generally exhibited homogenous human impact history, as well as development restrictions and/or opportunities were identified at three spatial scales using Landscape Ecology typology: (a) landscape systems, with minimum mapping units 1– 5 km2 involving a specific pattern of ecosystems and physiography, (b) landscape types, with minimum mapping units 200 m2 involving a pattern of land use types, and (c) ecotopes, recognizable subunits of certain ecosystem types, with minimum mapping units of some m2. The authors have reported more details on the methodological issues of the spatial sustainable development analysis and mapping processes in previous publications (Kazana et al. 2005; Kazana et al. 2006). The ‘‘local’’ level therefore used in the reported case was not defined with respect to the municipalities’ borders, but it was relevant to one landscape system. The second feature of the governance model is the Area Governance Council (AGC). The AGC was considered as an institutionalized structure of various local stakeholders, who are actively engaged in planning and decision-making processes of local development and particularly in formulation, analysis and evaluation of local development interventions. The AGCs ideally should operate as open systems, that is, any interested stakeholder, private or public in the development area should be able to enter or leave the AGC at any time. However, within the frame of the GOVERNET project, the AGCs were set up and operated with a predefined number of members due to the pilot nature of the project, but special attention was paid, so as the AGCs to be adequately represented by interested stakeholders.

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Each AGC involved a moderating team, decision-makers of all administrative levels, municipal, prefectural, and regional, opinion influencing stakeholders and scientists of different expertise with good knowledge of the local conditions. To our experience, for the successful operation of an AGC, the role of a moderating team was particularly important. Moderators were responsible for setting up the AGCs, managing and coordinating all the AGC’s work, stimulating participation of the AGC’s members, eliciting local knowledge and expertise on sustainable development processes in a systematic way, supporting the AGC members to identify and evaluate sustainable development interventions and developing best practices for rural development at the local level. The AGC’s were set up through a three-stage process. A moderating team of 3–4 persons, depending on the size of the study area was formed, a detailed list of interested local stakeholders of all the three categories described above was established by the moderators and the stakeholders were contacted formally in writing and informally through personal contact to commit themselves to participate in the AGC under concern. The overall responsibility for setting up and operating the AGC’s was with the authors in the GOVERNET project, who also acted as moderators in one of the Greek case studies, which is presented in the following section. The scientific approach the moderators in the GOVERNET pilot AGC applied to elicit local knowledge and expertise was a combination of Cognitive Mapping, DELPHI, and NGT. Cognitive mapping is a tool appropriate for modeling complex relationships among variables and it can be used to capture parts of the stakeholders’ point of view to help build a consensus among individuals and organizations (Eden 1989; Eden and Ackermann 2001; ¨ zesmi and O ¨ zesmi 2003; Giordano et al. 2005, Mendoza O and Prabhu 2005). That is why it was selected to apply in the GOVERNET model. The aim of the consensus process is to define a collective cognitive map with regard to planning and management problems in hand. Cognitive mapping was applied in the GOVERNET project in a modified DELPHI like process involving a number of iterations and control feedback. The DELPHI like modification was attempted in order to secure during the AGC’s function anonymity response and statistical group response. The NGT features mandated no collaboration between the AGC members when working in plenary sessions, so as to be able to record as many different views and interests as possible. The rest of the section will briefly describe the Kassandra peninsula of the Halkidiki Prefecture in northern Greece, one of the GOVERNET project pilot study areas, how the Kassandra AGC was set up and functioned and more specifically how quality of life concerns in Kassandra


were identified and evaluated along with other concerns in the context of rural local sustainable development.

The case study site The Kassandra peninsula with an area of 340 km2 forms part of the Halkidiki Prefecture in northern Greece (Fig. 1) and is probably the most complex area in terms of development patterns in northern Greece. From the administrative point of view it includes two municipalities, Kassandreia and Pallini, while the land uses of the Kassandra peninsula include agricultural lands (37.7%), forestlands (61.2%), and residential areas (1.1%). The permanent population of Kassandra is about 16,000 people according to the National Population Census of 2001, of which 52% are males and 48% females increasing over the past 20 years at an annual rate of 3.5%. About 33% of the population is distributed to the class of 25– 44 years of age. The unique combination of landscape, climate, and sea, makes Kassandra one of the most attractive tourist destinations in northern Greece and therefore, tourism constitutes the most important economic activity of the area. In addition, due to its proximity to

Fig. 1 Location map of the Kassandra–Halkidiki study area, northern Greece

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Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest urban centre, Kassandra forms an attractive location for summerhouses. However, population pressure during summers, which even amounts ten to fifteen times more of that in winters, concentration of population on the coastal areas, lack of infrastructure facilities such as roads, ports, and sewage installations, as well as problems related to lack of territorial planning, illegal building, waste disposal, high forest fire risk, forest trespassing, waste disposal, and scarcity of water resources constitute a complex situation and a challenge toward pursuing sustainable development and management of the area. The Kassandra Area Governance Council The Kassandra AGC was set up following the process described in the previous section with 30 members, of whom 26 were stakeholders of all three categories mentioned in the previous section, that is decision makers, opinion influencing stakeholders and local expert scientists, and four were the members of the moderating team. The work of the Kassandra AGC was carried out in an iterative manner following the scientific approach described previously. Four iterations were required to finally construct the collective cognitive map and agree on the alternative sustainable development strategies to be pursued for the Kassandra area. In Iteration I, a specifically designed free-response questionnaire was distributed to the AGC members in a plenary meeting following a detailed presentation of the project study objectives and the methodological work process by the moderators, in order to record all the views on the sustainable development objectives to be pursued for the Kassandra area, as well as the development factors that influence positively and negatively the achievement of these objectives and the factors that are influenced positively and negatively if these objectives were to be met. In Iteration II, 26 cognitive maps were constructed and the total number of factors identified was recorded. The moderators aggregated the variables in order to reduce their number and different groups and subgroups of factors were formed. The moderators then prepared rating sheets using a 7-point scale with 1 meaning ‘‘unimportant’’, 4 meaning ‘‘moderately important’’ and 7 meaning ‘‘extremely important’’ and the Council members evaluated the overall importance of the development factors. Iteration III involved a relative evaluation and the moderators prepared specifically designed rating sheets for the AGC members to relatively evaluate the factors. Each member rated each factor relatively in the same group and between groups on a scale from 1–100, giving it the most important factor the rate of 100. The other factors were rated in terms of the most important ones.

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During Iteration IV, the moderating team processed statistically the overall and relative importance questionnaires. Frequency distributions, as well as the median overall ranking and the geometric mean relative ranking for each variable were calculated. A limited list of ten variables was selected on the basis of the median overall ranking and geometric relative ranking in case of ties and a new questionnaire containing ordered pairs of those ten variables x, y was prepared. Random number tables were used to change the order-of-factor presentation and 26 different combinations were generated to minimize the effect of extraneous order-of-presentation. The moderating team then organized a second plenary meeting. The results obtained from Iterations II and III were presented and discussed with the AGC members. At the end, the questionnaire was handed out to the AGC members and they were asked to indicate for each ordered pair of variables x, y, whether all other things being equal, variable x significantly improves, significantly inhibits or it has a negligible effect on variable y. The members rated the effect as +, -, or 0, corresponding to the three possible answers. In cases, where the members felt that there was a weak influence they rated the corresponding effect + or - in brackets. The moderating team analyzed the results of the VIth Iteration questionnaires and constructed the collective cognitive map, which reflected upon the consensus buildup between the AGC members. The moderators finally using the mathematical properties of the collective cognitive map identified distinct paths, each representing a different alternative sustainable development strategy for the area of Kassandra.

Table 1 reports in detail the quality of life factors important for the Kassandra rural area, as these emerged through the Kassandra AGC work in the context of sustainable development planning of the area. Table 1 also draws the analogy between the quality of life factors revealed in the rural area of Kassandra and the kind of human needs they were related, using the list as basis for human needs for which quality of life and subjective wellbeing indicators were generated by Costanza et al. 2007. According to this list, human needs include subsistence, reproduction, security, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, spirituality, creativity/emotional expression, identity, and freedom. With the exception of reproduction and affection, the quality of life factors, which appeared important for the community of Kassandra were related to all the human needs listed by Costanza et al. 2007 with reference to the quality of life. From the 19 quality of life factors, eight were related to the subsistence needs of the community expressed mainly through indicators such as health food, better quality buildings, development of public infrastructure, clean villages, reduction of infection risk, improvement of natural environment, improvement of standard of living and knowhow transfer to improve the standard of living. Table 1 Quality of life factors for sustainable rural development— Kassandra Governance Council Quality of life factors

Human needs

Access to areas of natural beauty

Spirituality

Noise pollution reduction

Security

Service upgrading

Participation

Improving the standard of living conditions

Subsistence

Results

Know-how transfer to improve standard of living

Subsistence

A total number of 650 factors were originally recorded from the cognitive maps based on the free-response questionnaires, which were filled in by the AGC members during the first plenary meeting of the Governance Council. These were limited to 368 by aggregating the factors in the following seven different types of groups, of which the first one also included seven subgroups.

Quick access and easy presentation of local stakeholders on the Internet

Creativity/identity

More INTERNET provisions to the citizens and visitors of the area

Understanding

Waste treatment

Security

Improvement of natural environment

Subsistence

Mobility facilitation

Freedom

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Natural Resource Development and Management: 110 variables Spatial Planning—Environmental protection and enhancement of environmental values: 68 variables Economic and social resource development and management: 50 variables Quality of life: 19 variables Infrastructure: 19 variables Institutional framework: 102 variables Environmental impacts: 19 variables

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Less tourist pressure in certain locations

Leisure

Traffic regulation especially in summer

Leisure

Easier access to Kassandra

Leisure

Health food based on organically grown products

Subsistence

Clean villages

Subsistence

Reduce infection risk

Subsistence

Development of public infrastructure Faster civil services

Subsistence Participation

Buildings of better quality

Subsistence


These indicators are very relevant to the development pattern that has been attempted over the last 20–25 years in Kassandra, quite typical also of other tourist Mediterranean destinations. This pattern has been characterized by mass coastal tourism, low-quality lodgings, skyrocketing land prices, easy money-making social attitude, while not enough major investments on public infrastructure, such as roads, ports and sewage, and waste installations to cope with the hundreds of thousands of summer visitors and the hundreds of the nearby Thessaloniki city dwellers, who own a summer house in Kassandra. Due to this development pattern risks related to food, infections, forest fires and illegal building have been highly increased in Kassandra. This kind of development also has altered people’s values in life and the social structure, while the rural character of the area has also undergone a tremendous change. The latter impact of the rural Kassandra development pattern in combination with the increasing population trend, mainly due to emigrant workers may explain why quality of life descriptors related to reproduction and affection did not emerge through the Kassandra AGC participative development planning work. Engagement of the 90% of the permanent population with tourism explains the three quality of life descriptors with respect to the leisure needs of the community. Participation needs were described with two quality of life indicators both with reference to civil services available to the community, mainly because these are of low quality,

Table 2 Overall and relative importance of the quality of life factors for sustainable rural development—Kassandra Governance Council

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not enough and involve much bureaucracy. Security needs were also described with two quality of life indicators, both environmental, that is reduction of noise pollution and waste treatment due to tourist overcrowding. The other needs of the community, spirituality, freedom, understanding, and creativity/identity were described with one quality of life indicator, respectively. It is worth noting that the quality of life indicators related to understanding and creativity/identity needs were both connected to internet facilities, mainly due to the importance of tourism in the area’s economy. Frequency distributions of all the quality of life factors in relation to the overall importance and relative importance ratings were first calculated. The median values of the overall importance ratings, which express the agreement level of the Kassandra AGC members on the factors’ importance in relation to their contribution to the area sustainable development, are shown in Table 2. In terms of the relative importance ratings, geometric means are calculated to facilitate factor choice in case of ties. The corresponding values are also presented in Table 2. All the quality of life factors for the Kassandra area were highly evaluated, that is with ratings of 7 and 6. However, since arriving at solutions based on the greatest possible consensus was at the focus of the whole methodological procedure used during the functioning of the governance model, only factors with the largest median value that is the value of 7, were selected. The quality of

Quality of life factors

Median

Geometric Mean

Access to areas of natural beauty

6

70.16

Noise pollution reduction

6

58.20

Service upgrading

6

72.23

Improving the standard of living conditions

7

67.40

Know-how transfer to improve standard of living

6

56.16

Quick access and easy presentation of local stakeholders on the Internet

6

60.50

More INTERNET provisions to the citizens and visitors of the area

6

60.80

Waste treatment

7

68.99


7

81.35


7

75.30

Less tourist pressure in certain locations Traffic regulation especially in summer

6 7

70.40 86.90


7

69.22

Health food based on organically grown products

6

56.95

Clean villages

7

83.10

Reduce risk infection

6

54.98

Development of public infrastructure

6

68.27

Faster civil services

6

66.63

Buildings of better quality

6

69.14

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life factors corresponding to such values, which were finally selected, are shown in Table 3 along with the agreement response percentages of the Governance Council members calculated for five levels of relative importance. Interval importance levels were presented; because the relative scale used was from 1 to 100 and many factors took on very close value ratings. Only responses corresponding to relative ratings greater or equal to 50 are shown in Table 3. The quality of life factors rated as of most importance to the area to be considered for concrete sustainable development action planning involve traffic regulation especially in summers, easier access to Kassandra, mobility facilitation, improvement of natural environment, and improvement of standard of living, clean villages, and waste treatment. It is worth noting that the improvement of natural environment was rated high in Kassandra, because the area despite its rural character appears very urbanized especially during summers, due to the overload of tourists visiting the area, as well as summer residents. Quality of life concerns, therefore in the rural area of Kassandra, with its typical Mediterranean mass tourism development pattern relate mainly to mobility and environmental problems. It is worth reporting also that through the functioning of the Kassandra AGC, quality of life factors appear to be the most important ones along with the spatial planning— environmental protection and enhancement of environmental values, as 54% of the AGC members rated these as very important (ratings from 91 to 100) relatively to the other sustainable development domain factors (Table 4). Quality of life on the basis of the evaluation also carried out for all the other categories of development factors was included in the final list of development factors, which were used to construct the collective cognitive map and define alternative sustainable development strategies for the Kassandra area. The GOVERNET governance model was proved a very useful tool, as quality of life concerns were also emerged and evaluated through the AGCs function in the other,

except Kassandra, project study areas, the peri-urban areas of Mestre, the Livenza river valley and the mountainous West Friuli areas in Italy, and the Larissa area in central Greece. In the peri-urban area of Mestre 12 quality of life factors were identified, in Livenza 5, in West Friuli 5 and in Larissa 7. Information, collaboration of local communities, trade regulation, the political system, and the quality culture in the broad sense were the most important quality of life factors identified by the Mestre AGC members. Traffic/ congestion, education of agents and law, and other environmental bonds appeared important in Livenza, while information and knowledge of the area, landscape protection and enhancement and road improvement were the basic quality of life concerns in West Friuli. Finally, the Larissa AGC rated access to information, the uncontrolled waste disposal and cooperation between local communities as the most important factors. However, a detailed analysis of the development patterns of each area in each country in relation to the quality of life concerns revealed through the function of the GOVERNET governance model in each one of them remains beyond the scope of the current paper.

Conclusions There are two types of conclusions that can be drawn from the work presented in this paper. The first relates to the way quality of life concerns can be revealed at the local level through a bottom–up governance model in the rural sustainable development-planning context. Indeed, the operational governance model described in the previous sections, (1) can make it possible for scientists, local stakeholders, and decision makers in rural areas to arrive at a consensus toward identifying alternative development strategies, while pursuing a common goal, that is achieve sustainable development at local level, (2) can secure the greatest possible social agreement on what really matters at

Table 3 Response percentage (%) for five levels of relative importance—quality of life factors Quality of life factors

Response percentage (%) for five levels of relative importance per factor (all Council members) 51–60

61–70

Traffic regulation especially in summer

0


0

0


0

4.17


8.33

Clean villages

4.17

Improvement of standard of living Waste treatment

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12.50 0

12.50

12.50 0

71–80

81–90

91–100 54.17

4.17

29.17

12.50

20.83

50.00

8.33

25.00

45.83

20.83

20.83

29.16

20.83

33.33

37.50

4.16

20.83

20.83

25.00

4.17

12.50

33.33

37.50


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Table 4 Response percentage (%) for five levels of relative importance—all the sustainable development domain variables Sustainable development domain variables

Response percentage (%) for five levels of relative importance per domain variable (all AGC members) 51–60

61–70

71–80

81–90

91–100

Natural resource development and management

12.5

12.5

12.5

16.67

41.67

Spatial planning—environmental protection and enhancement of environmental values

8.33

4.17

8.33

20.83

58.33

Socio-economic resource development and management

0

12.5

33.33

8.33

33.33

Quality of life

12.5

8.33

12.5

12.5

54.17

Infrastructures

12.5

0

16.67

16.67

50

Institutional framework

12.5

16.67

29.17

25

12.5

Environmental impacts

8.33

8.33

12.5

16.67

54.17

the local level in terms of quality of life, (3) can help to link quality of life indicators and the related community needs to be met, (4) can help to evaluate quality of life indicators with respect to each other and with respect to other sustainable development concerns, (5) can establish a connection between quality of life indicator based information at the local level and specific spatial development patterns, so as to help further similar scientific efforts generate a typology of quality of life indicators with respect to specific spatial development patterns, (6) can facilitate interpretation of quality of life concerns in the context of sustainability, that is meeting present and future community needs, and finally, (7) can incorporate quality of life concerns operationally in the rural sustainable development action planning and management. Therefore, the governance model presented in this paper can support Local Agenda 21 action planning processes. The model can also be of help to the Local Action Groups (LAGs) operating in the frame of other EU Initiatives, such as the LEADER Programme with regard to their planning tasks. In particular, adoption of the set up structure and evaluation methodology of the model can help LAGs to defining more socially acceptable development objectives, as the model through its stepwise evaluation process reinforces transparency, objectivity, and trust to the process. The second type of conclusions concern the empirical results of quality of life concerns through the application of the governance model as related to the rural development patterns at the local level. Indeed, through the experience gained by applying the model in the Greek rural area of Kassandra–Halkidiki, quality of life community interests were related mainly to mobility goals (easier access to the area, traffic regulation especially during summers, mobility facilitation), environmental goals (improvement of natural environment, clean villages, waste treatment), and economic goals (improvement of standard of living). Quality of life factors were rated as the most important factors

along with the environmental and spatial planning factors over the entire sustainable development domain in the rural area of Kassandra. The governance model presented in this paper is still functioning as best practice of the GOVERNET transnational network (http://www.governet.eu), which shares tools and practices of this type and invites similar efforts to be launched, so that experiences and knowledge about quality of life in the context of rural sustainable development at the local level can be expanded and shared. Acknowledgments The work reported in this article has been carried out with ERDF funding from the European Community Initiative INTERREG IIIB CADSES (2000–2006), project 3B083 ‘‘GOVERNET: Governance models for sustainable integrated rural development and multifunctional agriculture; networking and dissemination on the web’’ and co-funding from the Italian, Greek and Slovenian Governments.

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