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Cities 27 (2010) 377–384

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Cities journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities

Environmental, social and economic information management for the evaluation of sustainability in urban areas: A system of indicators for Thessaloniki, Greece Nicolas Moussiopoulos a, Charisios Achillas a,*, Christos Vlachokostas a, Dimitra Spyridi a, Konstantinos Nikolaou b a b

Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Environmental Engineering, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Box 483, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece Organisation for the Master Plan and Environmental Protection of Thessaloniki, 105 Vasilissis Olgas Str., 54643 Thessaloniki, Greece

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 9 October 2009 Received in revised form 17 May 2010 Accepted 2 June 2010 Available online 26 June 2010 Keywords: Environmental information Socio-economic development System of indicators Sustainable development Decision-making

a b s t r a c t The use of indicators constitutes internationally an important tool for assessing the progress achieved towards sustainable development. Measuring the sustainability in urban areas – which are crucial engines of local socio-economic development, but at the same time present concentration points of environmental decay – is a major challenge for environmental managers and decision-makers. This paper aims at the development and utilisation of a system of indicators as a dynamic tool for the management of environmental, social and economic information in order to evaluate sustainability in urban areas. In this context, guidelines for the system’s development and use are proposed, together with a suggestion for its communication among local stakeholders. An application of this system is demonstrated through a case study using the Greater Thessaloniki Area, Greece, a domain with considerable socio-economic development, which is also encountering significant environmental pressures. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction Anthropogenic pressure on the urban environment has recently reached critical levels in numerous conurbations worldwide. In this context, taking specific measures as a response has become a necessity in the effort to confront such pressures. Protection and restoration of the environment requires that all mitigation efforts aim toward sustainability. In addition, responses to environmental degradation should be closely monitored and quantified so that relevant problems are adequately encountered. However, the question of whether cities’ development is sustainable has become the central objective of a large number of international programmes (Van Dijk and Mingshun, 2005). Urban sustainability is a multi-dimensional concept that includes environmental, economic, social and political dimensions (Huang et al., 2009; Olewiler, 2006). In that sense, assessing sustainability in urban areas is a major challenge for environmental managers and public authorities (Holden, 2006; Luque-Martínez and Muñoz-Leiva, 2005). Thus, tools to communicate sustainability restoration to a diverse audience of managers – agencies with different agendas, multiple stakeholders, and the general public – are essential (Doren et al., 2008).

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +30 2310 996092; fax: +30 2310 996012. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (N. Moussiopoulos), [email protected]. auth.gr (C. Achillas), [email protected] (C. Vlachokostas), [email protected]. auth.gr (D. Spyridi), [email protected] (K. Nikolaou). 0264-2751/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2010.06.001

Indicators imprint quantifiable trends in observable phenomena and can be characterised as signs or signals that relay a complex message from potentially numerous sources in a simple and useful manner (Peris-Mora et al., 2005; Kurtz et al., 2001). More specifically, urban indicators can provide crucial guidance for decision-making, since collected data are ‘‘translated” into manageable units of information. Towards this goal, the use of urban sustainability indicators constitutes internationally an important tool for assessing urban status (economic, social and environmental) and monitoring the progress achieved towards sustainable development (Graymore et al., 2009; Valentin and Spangenberg, 2000). The strategic plan towards sustainable development is fundamentally based on knowledge of the local economic opportunities, the local environmental conditions, and cultural and social characteristics (Scipioni et al., 2009). At the same time, indicators are expected to provide an early warning for the prevention of environmental, social and economic damages (Huang et al., 2009). Due to their diversification, the selection of a robust set of indicators, and consequently the development of an efficient system, has always been a relatively complex and challenging process. The selected indicators need to satisfy at the same time a number of different criteria. In order to meet user requirements, indicators should provide a relevant and meaningful summary of the conditions of interest. Furthermore, for the satisfaction of the wider community, they must be transparent, testable, easily understandable and scientifically sound. Additionally, indicators need to be adequately sensitive to detect and capture slight variations or

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changes in the thematic area they describe (Gustavson et al., 1999). Therefore, they should be developed in such a way that limited resources would be required for their estimation (UN, 2001; WHO, 1999). Thorough reviews of criteria taken into account in order to identify, select and evaluate indicators are presented in Reed et al. (2006), Barrera-Roldán and Saldıvar-Valdés (2002), and Rubio and Bochet (2002). In the material to follow, the management of information for assessing urban sustainability is presented through the development and application of a system of indicators. Unlike common practice, where indicators are developed in order to follow sustainability trends on a national scale, the system proposed here relies on the special characteristics of urban areas, for which special scale issues need to be taken into account. Urban conurbations are crucial engines of local socio-economic development. On the other hand, urban areas are concentration points of environmental decay, where (among other factors) pollution, noise annoyance, congestion, shortages of fresh water and energy demands contribute to a serious threat to social welfare and development (Van Dijk and Mingshun, 2005). Only a few indicators for urban conurbations have been developed, e.g. for the cities of Shanghai (Yuan et al., 2003) and Jining (Li et al., 2009) in China, Taipei (Huang et al., 1998), Granada (Luque-Martínez and Muñoz-Leiva, 2005) and Padua (Scipioni et al., 2009). Thorough analyses of previous studies on the development of urban sustainability indicators can be found in Tanguay et al. (2010) for developed western countries and in de Villa and Westfall (2001) for developing ones. In terms of system development approaches, a meticulous review is presented by Reed et al. (2006) and Scipioni et al. (2009). The approach adopted in the framework of this analysis combines a set of economic, social and environmental indicators which can potentially form the basis for sustainability evaluation in other urban areas. Furthermore, the system of indicators constitutes a practical benchmark through its application. As described above, the literature review shows that there are important studies for other urban areas – although limited in number – that provide useful background information and potential sets of indicators for use. However, emphasis should be given to a methodological approach for the development of an indicator system for successful implementation in an urban area with specific characteristics. Furthermore, it is the authors’ strong belief that while research on sustainable development indicators has resulted in a large number of indicators providing environmental, social and economic information, the interrelationships between those indicators are often lost. This paper presents an attempt to reflect such interrelationships and their quantitative and qualitative expert interpretation, which is based on a methodological approach that serves as an underlying statistical information system. This system adequately reflects the interrelationships between environment, society and economy at a local level, while also bringing about the linkage between the selected indicators. The philosophy of the method enhances the mutual consistency, reliability and comparability of the indicators. Additionally, it should be emphasised that in contrast to the majority of the currently employed methodological approaches, the user-based scheme presented in the framework of this analysis (the work was triggered by specific decision makers’ demands rather than scientific interest) ensures that the indicator set adopted will present maximum social acceptance, thus improving the possibility of its adoption by local communities, which will eventually lead to successful implementation and utilisation. Last, but not least, based on the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt in Greece to establish a comprehensive set of indicators covering the whole scope (environmental, economic and social pillars) of urban sustainable development. In this direction, the system herein presented can form the basis for indicator system develop-

ment in urban areas with similar characteristics, e.g. Mediterranean areas. The aim of the paper is threefold: (1) to briefly present the environmental, social and economic indicators included in the system, (2) to provide guidelines for the development and use of the tool, together with dissemination and communication suggestions and (3) to demonstrate the system’s applicability in a real world case study. This paper is divided into four sections. In Section 2, methodological issues are analytically discussed. Section 3 presents the development of the system through its application for the urban area under examination, combined with a summary of what indicators show about the city. The paper wraps up with some concluding remarks. It should be emphasised that the work presented in this paper is triggered by the public authority (Organisation for the Master Plan and Environmental Protection of Thessaloniki) in order to possess a tractable tool for policy making.

Framework for indicator system development In the analysis to follow, the conceptual approach to successfully develop a system of indicators for the evaluation of sustainability in urban areas is described (Fig. 1). The first step in the system’s development is an extensive review of other relevant indicator sets to obtain an insight into how such a system can be developed. This is critical not only for the achievement of compliance with national or international standards, but also for examining possible indicators that have already been put into practice and which will best suit the special characteristics of the urban area under study. In this light, similar sets of indicators that have been developed by international organisations – e.g. the United Nations (UN, 2007), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2004), EU (Eurostat, 2009), World Health Organisation (WHO, 1999), etc. – should be thoroughly studied, along with systems developed in the framework of widely accepted international research projects, such as the European Common Indicators (EC, 2003), Urban Audit (Urban Audit, 2004), EU TEPI (EC, 1999), CRISP (CRISP Project, 1999), CEROI (CEROI Project, 2010), Environmental Performance Index (Esty et al., 2006) and Environmental Sustainability Index (Esty et al., 2005). Furthermore, it is essential that existing national initiatives are taken into account when available, as well as initiatives that provide information at an urban scale. The second step includes the definition of the selected thematic areas included in the system. The system needs to cover a wide range of thematic areas in order to adequately imprint the present situation and future trends regarding the urban area under consideration. The combination of the first two steps leads to an initial set of indicators. A critical decision regarding the system’s development relies on the total number of indicators included in order to ensure flexibility and applicability. In that sense, an upper limit for the indicators included in the system needs to be defined, also taking into account the system’s user requirements and available infrastructure. The proposed specification of the system is determined on a Driving Forces, Pressures, State, Impact, and Response (DPSIR) basis in order to better implement environmental management and assessment (UNEP, 2010; EEA, 2005). A multiplicity of indicators in all thematic areas could create great difficulties in interpretation (especially for the public) and increase the difficulty of focusing on the essentials. In this light, constraints regarding the number of indicators included in the system lead to a second, limited list of indicators, which should be the output of a fruitful public dialogue that would follow a consensus between stakeholders. Urban sustainability indicators need not only to integrate, but also to be forward-looking, distributional, and ideally constitute the result of input from multiple stakeholders

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Fig. 1. Conceptual approach for the development of a system of indicators for the evaluation of sustainability in urban areas.

(Alberti, 1996). However, it is important to especially consider the ease of measurability and responsiveness to policy changes of the indicators as key criteria when selecting them. When defining each indicator, it is essential to pay attention to the time and relevant costs necessary to collect the data (Gustavson et al., 1999), and the frequency with which these data could be obtained. Since the final list of indicators that best suits the area’s characteristics is publicly acknowledged and widely accepted, the indicators need to be clearly and precisely defined (methodology of calculation, unit of measurement, sources of information, etc.). All the above is followed by the development of a factsheet that contains all necessary fields and encodes available information in a unique template. On this basis, the data collection and indicators’ calculation procedure is standardised, leading to optimal information management, considering the fact that those two steps require the expenditure of significant time and capital. In addition, the reliability of the available information is equally important and should be certified, since both the quality of scientific information and the method of its communication should meet adequate standards, especially as it targets decision-makers who are usually not scientists themselves (Doren et al., 2008). Most crucial is the fact that data from all existing sources needs to be gathered for the calculation of the indicators, notwithstanding the fact that this can be considerably tricky in real-life applications, in the effort to minimise local confrontations and distrust. The development of a factsheet would also further ease the dissemination of the indicators’ results to the public. Communication should be considered a very important tool in achieving sustainable development goals. In that sense, communication for sustainability should be embedded in the overall concept of the indicator approach and should refer to a strategic process that promotes environmental, social and economic changes through dialogue, knowledge-sharing, and participation, based on the system’s application. In this sense, the system’s development should be followed by an appropriate dissemination planning process that includes: (1) exchange of information, knowledge, ideas and values between citizens and public authorities, (2) promotion of citizens’ participation and community empowerment as the goal of sustainability, and (3) advocacy of opinion leaders in support of specific plans, programmes, policies and reforms. However, clarity in defining and presenting sustainability indicators is a prerequisite for proper interpretation of the results (compared to the reference values) in the policy arena. This is a necessary prerequisite in order to avoid misinterpretation, even when the assessment is carried out carefully, and its multiple uncertainties are carefully presented and explained to decisionmakers, print and electronic media and to the public. In some real life cases and due to the fact that there is a vast amount of information, communication could be ‘‘indirectly mainstreamed”, present-

ing part of the various thematic areas and information dissemination on specific issues. Monitoring indicators is only useful in the case that a thorough analysis of results is allowed directly from the system’s use. Effective use should potentially lead to re-orientations of policies when outcomes are unsatisfactory. In that sense, the use of the developed system of indicators should assist routine monitoring. It is of vital importance to assure the creation of a necessary infrastructure for the dynamic nature of the system and relevant data feedback for the diachronic quantification of the indicators. Individual indicators may have vastly different requirements for data collection, measurement and interpretation, and in the implementation period, any deficiencies should be identified in order to prompt appropriate corrective actions. In any case, it is necessary to continuously monitor the reliability and the representativeness of the statistical data on which the analysis of the indicators is based. It is also preferable to work on trends rather than just on isolated data and, as mentioned previously, it is important to review existing databases.

Case study: application of a system of urban indicators for the Greater Thessaloniki Area The domain Thessaloniki (Fig. 2) is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of Macedonia, the nation’s largest region. According to the data gathered from a population census in 2001, the Greater Thessaloniki Area (GTA) had a population of approximately 1 million (NSSG, 2010). Thessaloniki is the second major economic, industrial, commercial and political centre in the country, and a transportation hub for the rest of south-eastern Europe and the Balkans. The GTA faces significant environmental problems, especially in regard to air quality: Thessaloniki is considered one of the most polluted cities within Europe (Airbase, 2010). The impending update of the master plan and environmental protection program of the area, along with the implementation of the actions of Thessaloniki’s Strategic Plan towards sustainability, require information regarding both the current status, as well as expected future trends for the area. Following the methodological scheme presented in Fig. 1, a research project aiming at the development of a ‘‘System of indicators for sustainability and the environment of the Greater Thessaloniki Area” has been implemented. This project has been realised by a multidisciplinary scientific team from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, under the coordination of the Organisation for the Master Plan and Environmental Protection of Thessaloniki (OMPERTh). The system is set up in order to organise the existing information, which is rather scattered and not easy to obtain for urban areas in Greece. Therefore,

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Fig. 2. The Greater Thessaloniki Area, Greece.

one of the most crucial aspects for the project’s success was the substantial improvement in the way information is updated and presented to decision-makers and the public. Limits of the system After the review of relevant systems and the selection of potential thematic areas, the overall number of potential indicators (initial list) exceeded 640, which was characterised as non-tractable and unmanageable. One of the challenges in creating an efficient system of indicators is the selection of a manageable list of metrics that better describe the status of the area under investigation. Developing indicators cannot be a purely technical or scientific process. Instead, it should be an open communication and policy process (Valentin and Spangenberg, 2000). For the case of the GTA, the need for reaching a broad consensus in relation to the system’s limits, and simultaneously achieving greater transparency and dissemination concerning the development of the system of indicators, triggered a public dialog event. This was initially realised with the Environmental Council of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in December 2006 (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Environmental Council, 2006) and subsequently by an open meeting with the attendance of all environmental-related public authorities in the GTA, as well as citizens (LHTEE, 2007). The public

dialog was organised in order to take into account all stakeholders’ and local decision-makers’ views, opinions, needs and valuable comments regarding the selected indicators. This policy-level discussion highlighted key issues regarding the role of the system and its effectiveness in the design of policy plans and decisionmaking. It should be noted that there are numerous ways in which sustainability indicators could be categorised (Hezri and Dovers, 2006). For the case of the GTA, the public dialog revealed that a total of 13 thematic areas seem to play the most crucial role for the area’s sustainability. In order to include all those crucial thematic areas, as well as maintain the operational flexibility and the dynamic character of the system, the optimal range of selected indicators was appointed to be in the order of 80–100. This constraint was defined as a rational number of indicators, taking into account similar studies worldwide. Tanguay et al. (2010) present a summary of the indicators used in 17 studies internationally, where an average of nine indicators per thematic area can be appointed. It should be emphasised that the selected range satisfies the imperative necessity of all local stakeholders, which aims at a reasonable balance between scientific completeness and the system’s flexibility. This was also validated by a public dialog event and OMPERTh’s requirements, needs and operational infrastructure.

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Final list of indicators For the area under consideration, the methodological steps, as described earlier, led to 88 indicators included in a framework of 13 discrete thematic areas, namely: (I) Economy–Population, (II) Land and Urban Planning, (III) Energy, (IV) Transportation, (V) Agriculture–Livestock–Fishery, (VI) Industry, (VII) Tourism, (VIII) Air Pollution–Climate Change, (IX) Water Resources and Sea Environment, (X) Solid Waste, (XI) Biodiversity, (XII) Health, (XIII) Education–Research and Technology. The final list of indicators included in the system is presented in Table 1. The selected set of indicators clearly set out the sustainability in the GTA, focusing on the area’s specific characteristics. Together with indicators that are widely used to describe urban sustainability – e.g. indicators on demography, urban planning, energy demand, urban transportation, etc. – and which represent the majority of the indicator set, special attention was also given to thematic areas of vital importance for the GTA, such as sea environment and tourism, as well as to areas that are expected to play an important role in the future. To that end, indicators such as ‘‘Penetration of tele-working” and ‘‘Alternative technologies in transportation” were included. For example, regarding ‘‘Penetration of tele-working” (i.e. when paid workers carry out all, or part of, their work away from their places of activity, using information and communication technologies), the understanding of how cities’ economic structures are changing is very important while trying to forecast future urban transportation patterns. However, increased transport demand (and consequently, energy demand, traffic congestion, elevated emission levels, air quality or noise problems, etc.) challenges urban sustainability. In that sense, a shift towards information technologies that allow people to work from home instead of commuting could be characterised as an important economic structural change, especially for a servicebased urban economy such as the GTA, where services represent more than 65% of the local GDP and employment, illustrating an increasing trend (Moussiopoulos and Nikolaou, 2008). The progress toward a more high technology service society is expected to have a considerable positive impact upon sustainable development, and this is the reason behind the inclusion of such indicators in the system.

Table 1 System of indicators. Economy Population

I1 I2 I3 I4 I5

Population (inhabitants) Population density (inhabitants/km2) Gross Domestic Product (GDP/capita) Employment (%) Commuting (inhabitants per media)

Land and Urban Planning

II1 II2

Land use (%) Urban and suburban green (m2 of green space/capita) Density of road network (road km/km2) Brownfields (% of total area) Sanitation infrastructure (# of connections) City growth (# of building permits)

II3 II4 II5 II6 Energy

III2 III3 III4 III5 III6 III7 Transportation

IV1 IV2 IV3 IV4 IV5 IV6 IV7 IV8 IV9

Agriculture–Livestock– Fishery

V2 V3

Pesticides usage (kt) Penetration of organic agricultural products (%) Animal productivity (kt) Grazing intensity (lZM/ha) Farm grown roughage production (kt) Number of livestock farms (#) Penetration of organic livestock products (%) Eco-efficiency of agriculture sector (kt/ fertil.-pestic.) Fishery (kt,% limit values exceedances) Concentration of heavy metals in seafood (%)

V10 V11 VI1 VI2 VI3 VI4 VI5 VI6 Tourism

Transportation demand (vehicle-km, passenger-km) Modal split (%) Total number of vehicles (#) Age, fuel type and technology of vehicles (%) Alternative technologies in transportation (%) Public transportation vehicles average speed (km/h) Private cars average speed (km/h) Number of car accidents (#) Eco-efficiency of transport sector (vkm/emissions) Fertilizers usage (kt)

V9

Industry

Energy demand (tones of oil equivalent – TOE) Sectoral analysis of energy demand (%) Energy intensity (TOE/GDP) Renewable energy (MW) Penetration of natural gas and bio-fuels (%) Heating and cooling efficiency (TOE/m2 of built area) Eco-efficiency of energy sector (TOE/ emissions)

V1

V4 V5 V6 V7 V8

Use of the system Most systems of indicators in the literature are based on the scientific aspects of the design and prescription of indicator sets rather than how they are, or might be, used (Hezri and Hasan, 2004). In the case presented here, attention is also given to applicability issues. Fig. 3 depicts a flow chart with guidelines for the use phase of the indicators system developed. In a nutshell, the operational phase commences with the precise definition of the selected indicators. This is followed by the analytical description in an effort to clarify what exactly is measured by the indicator and avoid misinterpretations. Units of measurement are strictly designated so that the same metric applies to all stakeholders that possess data for the indicators’ calculation. In Table 1, indicative units of measure are presented for the selected indicators. Different units could be employed according to the study area’s special characteristics. Moreover, the methodological approach for the indicators’ calculation needs also to be clearly stated. It is suggested that the statistical data for the set of indicators be expressed not only in percentage terms, but also in absolute values. Another issue should be raised at this point. Organisations that possess the required data for the indicators’ calculation should be recorded in an effort both to make initial calculations easier and to create a robust database that would make dynamic update of the system effortless. The steps of data mining and indicator calcula-

III1

VII1 VII2 VII3 VII4 VII5

Number of industries (#) Industries with Environmental Manag. Systems (%) Industries that fall into SEVESO and IPPC (%) Industries of average-high environmental pressure (%) Production of industrial wastewater (m3) Eco-efficiency of industrial sector (GDP/ emissions) Number of tourists (# of arrivals) Tourist accommodation (# of overnights spent) Number of hotels – hotel adequacy (#,%) Sectoral tourist analysis (%) Eco-efficiency of tourism sector (arrivals/emissions) (continued on next page)

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Table 1 (continued) Air pollution Climate change

VIII1

VIII5 VIII6 VIII7 VIII8 VIII9

Emissions of atmospheric pollutants (kt) Decoupling of emissions and economy (kt/GDP) Mean values and number of exceedances (lg/m3, #) Sectoral analysis of air pollutants emissions (%) Human exposure assessment (lg/m3) Indoor air quality (lg/m3) Emissions of GHGs (kt) Sectoral analysis of GHGs emissions (%) Radiation (Sum of Exposure Quotients)

IX1

Water resources (m3)

IX2

Quality of water resources (pH, mg/l, lS/cm) Sectoral analysis of water demand (%) Eutrophication (mg/l) Flood hazards (probability) Quality of sea water (lg/l) Concentration of seaweed (lg/l) Production and treatment of wastewater (m3)

VIII2 VIII3 VIII4

Water resources and Sea environment

IX3 IX4 IX5 IX6 IX7 IX8 Solid waste

X1 X2 X3 X4

Solid waste production (kg/capita/year) Characterisation of solid waste (%) Recycling (%) Production and treatment of hazardous waste (kt/year)

Biodiversity

XI1 XI2 XI3

Forest fires – reforestation (ha) Hazard for forest fires (probability) Condition of land biotopes (Shannon– Wiener marker) Condition of water biotopes (mg/l) Land acidification–land erosion (%) Endangered species (#,%) Fallow of farmland (%)

XI4 XI5 XI6 XI7 Health

XII1 XII2 XII3

Noise pollution (dB(A)) Life expectancy (years) Death and disease causes (# of deaths/ cause)

Education–Research and Technology

XIII1

Number of researchers (#)

XIII2 XIII3 XIII4 XIII5 XIII6

Penetration of internet (%) E-government (%) Penetration of tele-working (%) Educational level (%) Environmental education programs in schools (#,%) Students per class – schools with double duty (#,%) Patents (#)

XIII7 XIII8

tions follow. However, during the data mining process in real-life applications, parameter values for the calculation of some indicators could potentially originate from estimations, suppositions or forecasts due to a lack of data. All the above assumptions are essential in order to calculate indicators and need to be meticulously described so that misuse is avoided. For the system to become operationally easier to comprehend, a clear record of the interrelationship between the indicators could prove to be very helpful. For instance, ‘‘Energy intensity” (Indicator III3 in Table 1) is calculated as the fraction of ‘‘Energy demand” (Indicator III1) with ‘‘Gross Domestic Product” (Indicator I3). The last two steps refer to the identification of the information shortcomings and the proposal for future improvements, both in relation to the system itself and as recommendations to local stakeholders regarding the type of data required. In order to better manage environmental, social and economic information for the evaluation of sustainability in the GTA, a standardised template is developed aligned with the methodological

Fig. 3. Guidelines for indicators system’s use phase.

framework presented in Section 2. A factsheet was designed in order to provide key information in a straightforward and easy-tofollow manner for local decision-makers. The fields embodied in the factsheet include the following topics: (1) description of indicator, (2) summary of results, (3) historical trend, (4) importance, (5) methodological issues, (6) analytical results (including comparative diagrams and tables) (7) conclusions, (8) comparison with other urban areas at national and/or international levels, (9) interrelation between indicators, (10) sources of information and references, (11) regional coverage, (12) time coverage, (13) deficiencies and future work and (14) general comments. The structure of the aforementioned template for all indicators appears online in the project’s final report (LHTEE, 2008). In the paragraph to follow, a factsheet regarding the indicator ‘‘Mean values and number of exceedances” (Indicator VIII3 in Table 1) of the ‘‘Air pollution–Climate change” thematic area is illustrated for demonstration purposes, since the analytical presentation of all available factsheets exceeds the scope of this paper. On the first page of the factsheet (page 289 of the project’s final report available at http://delta.meng.auth.gr/sdpa/orth_final_report.pdf), a synopsis of the indicator is provided. With the help of an ‘‘emoticon”, an overview of the indicator’s trend in terms of sustainability, and whether this is characterised as positive, negative or neutral, is depicted. For the case of the indicator under consideration, it is obvious that the current situation regarding air pollution levels in the GTA is disappointing. The trend in the specific area is negative, as also depicted by the ‘‘emoticon”. This is further analysed in the subsequent field of the factsheet regarding the ‘‘Summary of results”. In regard to the criteria used to determine the sustainability or emoticon for each indicator, which constitutes an important part of the process of sustainability assessment, a consensus of local experts was achieved for every thematic area. Depending on the exis-

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tence or absence of a quantified target for a particular indicator, experts considered specific target values or goals, either legislative (local or national) or qualitative, depending on the special characteristics of every indicator and its relation to the area under study. In that sense, what sustainability means heavily differentiates among indicators. For example, in regard to air quality or drinking water quality, sustainability – and the corresponding ‘‘emoticon” – can be benchmarked against implied legislative limits. In contrast, for other indicators, such as tourist arrivals, which happen to be a very sensitive social and economic aspect for the specific characteristics of the area under study, other criteria, mostly social and economic, are taken into consideration in order to ‘‘calculate” sustainability. The above strategy provides a simple, transparent and easily understandable approach, although the sustainability ‘‘quantification” process cannot be strictly defined and heavily depends on the area under study. In principle, a ‘‘positive emoticon” is utilised for an indicator that diachronically shows a clearly favourable change and moves towards a targeted pathway. On the contrary, a ‘‘negative emoticon” is utilised for an indicator that moves away from targets and shows a clearly unfavourable change. Two additional types of emoticons were utilised: one for those indicators that do not show any favourable or unfavourable trend (‘‘neutral emoticon”) and another for those indicators for which no diachronical data was available. Key findings and results One of the most critical issues to address in the system’s specifications is both the reliability of the available information and the completeness of potential data sources. To remedy these shortcomings, a thorough review of all published work for the GTA in the thematic areas included in the system was realised and all the existing data for the estimation of the indicators was gathered. In general, there seems to be a lack of reliable information for some of the thematic areas that were included in the system of indicators. It should be stressed that the provision of future resources for the development of relative databases providing homogeneous data and metadata is imperative. The situation is even more problematic for indicators that deal with more modern practices, such as ‘‘Penetration of tele-working”, where there is absolutely no existing information. Overall, for nine indicators, the complete lack of any raw data did not allow their calculation, at least for the time being. In general, the GTA faces a number of considerable sustainability pressures. For example, the local ecosystem is severely threatened by enormous ecological, social and economic impacts. Additionally, the area is characterised by a shortage of green spaces, posing a burden to local air quality – and consequently public health – and the city’s aesthetics. Energy strategies urgently need to turn towards renewable sources and more effort is needed in order to achieve sustainable urban transportation, in order to improve local air quality, which is also a main pressure for the GTA (Moussiopoulos et al., 2009; Vlachokostas et al., 2009). Furthermore, due to a poorly-integrated waste management infrastructure (Achillas et al., 2010), attention should be given to the development of facilities for the treatment of hazardous waste, while recycling campaigns and educational programmes are put into practice. However, there are specific areas where trends are promising, such as economy and sustainable tourism. A brief description of key findings, results and what indicators show about the city can be found online (http://delta.meng.auth.gr/sdpa/ key_findings.pdf). One additional issue should be raised at this point. In most cases, local public bodies either do not collect basic information at all, or the information gathered is not sufficiently organised,

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mostly due to poor computerisation, and therefore is not accessible to the public. In countries such as Greece, where the flow of information is somewhat restricted, the development and realisation of a system of indicators is a complicated task. In addition, mistrust between scientists and local authorities was observed, leading to a lack of co-operation between them. In this context, the system of indicators played a vital role in bringing all stakeholders together in the effort to provide access to sustainability information through the use of an easy-to-follow tool. This is even more imperative since data collection, compilation and analysis are often the responsibility of different institutions and public bodies, making the relevant information even more scattered. As a final step, a dissemination campaign was organised, which, among other steps, included: (1) preparation of a synopsis of the system’s results (Moussiopoulos and Nikolaou, 2008), (2) dispatch of synopsis to all relevant local stakeholders and public authorities, and (3) a wide and successful public dialogue with local organisations, media and citizens, for evaluation purposes. This ‘‘Dissemination of results” step (see Fig. 1) was created in order to take into consideration how local stakeholders felt about the indicators, so that specific changes (either considering the indicators themselves or how they are presented to the public) could be introduced. In other words, indicators were evaluated in a way that was clear, unambiguous, and easy to understand and interpret by local society. Moreover, the system for the GTA was widely accepted and characterised as accurate, reliable, bias-free, and scientifically robust, generally allowing for monitoring of the most important thematic areas for all local stakeholders. Last but not least, it should be noted that there was consensus among decision-makers, policy developers, and community members, which could be attributed to the methodological approach adopted in the framework of the system’s development that centred on all stakeholders’ early involvement.

Conclusions Indicators are becoming increasingly important as a means of communicating information to decision-makers and the public in a straightforward and easy-to-follow manner. The objective of the present study is to provide guidelines in order to efficiently develop and use a set of indicators which reflect local status and assist communities in achieving their sustainability goals. The case study of the Thessaloniki region demonstrates the feasibility of integrating sustainability indicators using a systematic process. Towards this end, a consensus is built to advance the use of the system developed, including the encouragement of all stakeholders to adopt the selected core set of indicators as a starting point for policy-oriented activities. It is important to recognise that continued coordination and integration among environmental scientists and local policy-makers is critical in order to optimise monitoring and communicate restoration success progress. The system developed constitutes a dynamic and useful instrument that records a wide spectrum of trends, while it provides insights regarding the effectiveness of the policy plans taken towards improving the local environmental, social and economic conditions. A consistent and robust framework for indicator evaluation is provided and thus the system developed could become an important tool in the continuous process of developing sustainability indicators for urban areas. Notwithstanding the fact that certain limitations could arise in the adoption of the proposed set of indicators in another urban area, the conceptual approach remains unaltered. In addition, the insights offered can be exploited in a way to design indicators capable of better informing the decision-makers. In conclusion, for urban areas that face environmental, social and economic problems, indicators point a way to a

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better future. At a minimum, indicators generate discussion among stakeholders with different backgrounds and viewpoints. This will ultimately lead to the creation of a shared vision towards sustainability. Acknowledgements The authors wish to express their warm gratitude to the Organisation for the Master Plan and Environmental Protection of Thessaloniki, which funded the project, as well as to all colleagues who have contributed to the development of the system of indicators for the evaluation of the environment and sustainability in Thessaloniki. Special thanks are due to the members of the co-ordinating team of the research project, Prof. Nastis and Prof. Koutitas. Also, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which greatly improved the quality of the manuscript. References Achillas, Ch, Vlachokostas, Ch, Moussiopoulos, N and Banias, G (2010) Decision support system for the optimal location of electrical and electronic waste treatment plants: A case study in Greece. Waste Manage 30(5), 870–879. Airbase (2010) Official web site. (last visited 22.03.2010). Alberti, M (1996) Measuring urban sustainability. Environ. Impact Asses. Rev. 16(4– 6), 381–424. Aristotle University Thessaloniki Environmental Council (2006) Proceedings of 52nd Environmental Council’s Meeting, Thessaloniki, 21 December (in Greek). Barrera-Roldán, A and Saldıvar-Valdés, A (2002) Proposal and application of a sustainable development index. Ecol. Indic. 2, 251–256. CEROI Project (2010) Cities Environment Reports on the Internet (CEROI) Official Webpage. (last visited: 22.3.2010). CRISP Project (1999) A European Thematic Network on Construction and City Related Sustainability Indicators. Final Report, March. de Villa, V and Westfall, M (2001) Urban Indicators for Managing Cities: Cities Data Book, Asian Development Bank, August. Doren, R, Trexler, J, Gottlieb, A and Harwell, M (2008) Ecological indicators for system-wide assessment of the greater everglades ecosystem restoration program. Ecol. Indic. 9(6), S2–S16. European Commission (EC) (2003) European Common Indicators: Towards a Local Sustainability Profile. European Common Indicators Project, Final Project Report, Milano, Italy, May. European Commission (EC) (1999) Towards Environmental Pressure Indicators for the EU, first ed. European Environment Agency (EEA) (2005) The European Environment – State and Outlook 2005. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Copenhagen. Eurostat (2009) Sustainable Development in the European Union: 2009 Monitoring Report of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. Eurostat Statistical Books. Graymore, M, Wallis, A and Richards, A (2009) An index of regional sustainability: a GIS-based multiple criteria analysis decision support system for progressing sustainability. Ecol. Complex. 6, 453–462. Gustavson, K, Lonergan, S and Ruitenbeek, J (1999) Selection and modeling of sustainable development indicators: a case study of the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia. Ecol. Econ. 28, 117–132. Hezri, A and Dovers, S (2006) Sustainability indicators, policy and governance: issues for ecological economics. Ecol. Econ. 60(1), 86–99. Hezri, A and Hasan, M (2004) Management framework for sustainable development indicators in the State of Selangor, Malaysia. Ecol. Indic. 4(4), 287–304. Holden, M (2006) Urban indicators and the integrative ideals of cities. Cities 23(3), 170–183. Huang, S-L, Yen, C-T, Budd, W and Chen, L-L (2009) A Sensitivity Model (SM) approach to analyze urban development in Taiwan based on sustainability indicators. Environ. Impact Asses. Rev. 29(2), 116–125. Huang, S-L, Wong, J-H and Chen, T-C (1998) A framework of indicator system for measuring Taipei’s urban sustainability. Landscape Urban Plan. 42, 15–27. Kurtz, J, Jackson, L and Fisher, W (2001) Strategies for evaluating indicators based on guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development. Ecol. Indic. 1(1), 49–60. Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Environmental Engineering (LHTEE) (2007) Proceedings of Social Dialogue for the System of Indicators for the Evaluation of

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