Assessing Regional Sustainability with the EPSILON Project
Year: 2005
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The EPSILON project (Environmental Policy via Sustainability Indicators On a European-wide level --2002-2005) is delivering a GIS integrated computerized model for benchmarking European regions through an aggregation of indicators represented on sustainability maps. Assessing sustainability within the EPSILON project has been addressed over four spheres/pillars: the environmental, the economic, the social and the institutional dimension as defined by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. A coherent objective based structure has been defined relying strongly on the analytical DPSIR framework (Driving-Forces, Pressures, State, Impact and Response model from the European Environmental Agency). Such structure has been defined through a relevant definition of Indicators, sub-themes, themes and pillars for which maps at national level over 15 European countries are provided. Regional maps are also provided at regional levels (NUTS II and NUTS III levels). These results should not be considered as absolute figures but rather as an attempt of a relative sustainability assessment. Such regional sustainability assessment illustrates the interest to move down from a national assessment to a more local level by revealing higher data dispersion and detecting for example specific environmental issues, which would have been levelled otherwise at national scale.
Source: HAL
Institution: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2734401305