衡量可持续性和生活质量的挑战——以加拿大一个小城市为例

Hasnat Dewan
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引用次数: 2

摘要

目前有许多套指标可用于衡量可持续性和人民的生活质量或福祉。然而,这组指标的选择可以广泛地影响一个地方在人民生活质量方面的排名。例如,哥斯达黎加在2012年快乐星球指数中排名第一,但在人类发展指数中排名第69位。本文的目标是通过结合几种方法来设计一个强大的机制来评估一个地方的生活质量。我们以加拿大的一个小城市坎卢普斯作为案例研究的对象。这座311平方公里的城市位于不列颠哥伦比亚省内陆,人口约87000人。MoneySense分别在2012年和2013年将其列为加拿大最佳居住地第44位和第64位。对一些指标的年度波动过于敏感的指数可能有利于理解短期生活质量的变化,但可能不一定反映一个地方的幸福水平及其可持续性。在本文中,我们定义了一种方法,为坎卢普斯选择一套适当的指标,以衡量平均生活质量及其可持续性。随着数以百计的全球和区域生活质量和可持续性指标倡议,以及许多可用的方法,选择合适的指标和评估方法对任何城市都很重要。经济学家经常使用预期指标的估计货币价值来计算真正的进步指标,或其他生活质量或综合可持续性指数。另一方面,自然科学家仅使用少数物理指标进行环境可持续性评价。我们认为,货币和实物指标都是任何生活质量指数的重要组成部分,因此,必须成为全面的可持续性计划的一部分。本文提出了一种从大量的生活质量和可持续性指标中计算相对较多的综合指标的数据汇总方法。缺乏可靠和充分的数据是衡量所需指标的一个严重挑战。由于数据限制,目前不可能使用我们建议的方法对坎卢普斯的平均生活质量及其可持续性进行全面评估。然而,所提出的方法和为本研究编制的数据是向坎卢普斯的幸福、幸福、收入、财富和可持续性指数的完整和系统核算迈出的一步。我们已经根据我们提出的标准评估了当前的坎卢普斯可持续发展计划。预计这项研究将使坎卢普斯市的不同利益相关者重新考虑他们的可持续发展计划,并将有助于使坎卢普斯成为一个更好的居住地。本文所推荐的方法是通用的,足以用于任何地方的生活质量和可持续性评估。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
Challenges in Measuring Sustainability and the Quality of Life – The Case of a Small Canadian City
Many set of indicators are currently available to measure sustainability and the quality of life or well-being of the people. However, choice of the set of indicators can widely affect the ranking of a place in terms of the quality of life of the people. For example, Costa Rica ranks 1st in terms of the 2012 Happy Planet Index, but it ranks 69th in terms of the Human Development Index. The goal of this paper is to design a robust mechanism by combining several methodologies to assess the quality of life in a place. We used a small Canadian city, Kamloops, for our case study. This 311 square km city in Interior British Columbia has a population of about 87,000. MoneySense ranked it 44th and 64th best places to live in Canada in 2012 and 2013 respectively. The index that is too sensitive to annual fluctuations of a few indicators could be good for understanding short-run quality of life changes, but might not necessarily reflect the level of well-being and its sustainability in a place. In this paper, we have defined a methodology to select an appropriate set of indicators for Kamloops that would measure the average quality of life and its sustainability. With hundreds of global and regional quality of life and sustainability indicator initiatives, and many available methodologies, it is important for any city to choose the appropriate indicators and evaluation methods. Economists often use estimated monetary values of desired indicators to compute Genuine Progress Indicator, or such other quality of life or composite sustainability indices. Natural scientists, on the other hand, use only a few physical indicators for environmental sustainability assessment. We believe that both monetary and physical indicators are important components of any quality of life index, and therefore, have to be part of a comprehensive sustainability plan. A data aggregation method has been suggested in this paper for computing relatively more composite indices from the large number of quality of life and sustainability indicators. The absence of reliable and adequate data is a serious challenge in measuring the desired indicators. Due to data constraints, a complete assessment of the average quality of life and its sustainability in Kamloops is not possible at this time using our suggested methodology. However, the proposed methodology and the data compiled for this study are steps forward to a complete and systematic accounting of well-being, happiness, income, wealth, and sustainability indices for Kamloops. We have assessed the current Kamloops Sustainability Plan based on our proposed criteria. It is expected that this study will make different stakeholders in the City of Kamloops re-think about their sustainability plans, and will help contribute to make Kamloops a better place to live. The methodology recommended in this paper is general enough to be used for quality of life and sustainability assessment in any place.
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