TY - JOUR
T1 - Quantitative evaluation of settlement sustainability policy (QESSP); forward planning for 26 Irish settlements
AU - Fitzgerald, Brian G.
AU - O'Doherty, Travis
AU - Moles, Richard
AU - O'Regan, Bernadette
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 by the authors, licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Urban areas are increasingly associated with negative environmental impacts due to concentrated resource consumption; however urban areas also offer economies of scale in terms of service provision. There is no accepted mechanism to aid decision-makers in policy selection to determine where to promote population growth or how to select settlement specific policies to improve sustainability of urban areas. There is strong political desire for methods assessing policy implementation impact on overall sustainability targets, but this has proved challenging, as views on the meaning of sustainability vary, and methods developed satisfying scientists' needs for rigor are deemed too complex and inadequately transparent by decision-makers. Sustainability measurement is vital to check whether a new policy, decision or technical innovation is helpful in enhancing sustainability. By 2055 estimates indicate that 75 percent of the world population will live in urban areas, highlighting the importance of promoting low cost policy decisions providing greatest environmental benefit, with short implementation timescale. This paper describes an evidence-based method developed and piloted to address these drivers and provide a decision support system for planners and policy-makers developed for Irish settlements with population range 500-20,000, which may have application elsewhere.
AB - Urban areas are increasingly associated with negative environmental impacts due to concentrated resource consumption; however urban areas also offer economies of scale in terms of service provision. There is no accepted mechanism to aid decision-makers in policy selection to determine where to promote population growth or how to select settlement specific policies to improve sustainability of urban areas. There is strong political desire for methods assessing policy implementation impact on overall sustainability targets, but this has proved challenging, as views on the meaning of sustainability vary, and methods developed satisfying scientists' needs for rigor are deemed too complex and inadequately transparent by decision-makers. Sustainability measurement is vital to check whether a new policy, decision or technical innovation is helpful in enhancing sustainability. By 2055 estimates indicate that 75 percent of the world population will live in urban areas, highlighting the importance of promoting low cost policy decisions providing greatest environmental benefit, with short implementation timescale. This paper describes an evidence-based method developed and piloted to address these drivers and provide a decision support system for planners and policy-makers developed for Irish settlements with population range 500-20,000, which may have application elsewhere.
KW - Policy making
KW - Sustainable development
KW - Urban planning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84923164070&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su7021819
DO - 10.3390/su7021819
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84923164070
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 7
SP - 1819
EP - 1839
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 2
ER -