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Space and sustainability. Potential for landscape as a spatial unit for assessing sustainability
Author(s) -
Morse Stephen,
Vogiatzakis Ioannis,
Griffiths Geoff
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
sustainable development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.115
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1099-1719
pISSN - 0968-0802
DOI - 10.1002/sd.418
Subject(s) - sustainability , sustainable development , townsend , index (typography) , space (punctuation) , quality (philosophy) , variable (mathematics) , environmental resource management , landscape planning , unit (ring theory) , environmental economics , business , environmental planning , geography , computer science , economics , ecology , mathematics , mathematical analysis , philosophy , physics , mathematics education , epistemology , quantum mechanics , world wide web , biology , operating system
Assessment of sustainable development normally takes place within what can best be termed ‘administrative’ spaces (cities, regions, nation states etc.), where there is some managerial and policy control. Thus recommendations may be derived from an analysis of this space, for example the derivation of indicators and indices, which can feed more readily into decision‐making. They are alternatives to the use of defined ‘administrative’ spaces such as the ecosystem and landscape. The paper questions the viability of landscape as a viable spatial matrix for assessment of sustainability. Joint Character Areas (JCAs) in England were employed as the landscape space, and data were collected to assess environmental quality (via the creation of a Countryside Quality Index, CQI) and social deprivation (via the Townsend Index of Deprivation, TID) for each JCA, as these represent two dimensions of sustainability. Results suggest that when employing JCAs as the spatial matrix it is possible to derive a statistically significant regression between CQI as the independent variable as TDI as the dependent variable. Therefore landscape does have some viability as a space for assessing sustainability. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.