Revista TA 36 - Book 3, Use of social, economic, environmental and sustainable indicators

This paper analyzes the use of indicators, that is numbers, signals and coefficients that allow us to evaluate where we stand considering all the intervening aspects. Indicators are invaluable means to assess the progress of our plans, to take corrective measures and to establish thresholds for the sustainable use of our resources.

t is a metric that is a measure that tells us something. For instance the clinic thermometer shows as the temperature of the human body. From here we can draw conclusions, and then take suitable actions.
A student mark is another indicator that in a certain scale gauges his/her accomplishments, and gives useful information about her/his weaker points, or area that need more work.

A road signal is another indicator informing that there is a curve ahead, warning us about the convenience of possibly reducing speed.
A fuel gauge in our car informs about the fuel level in the fuel tank, and in so doing allows us to take decisions for refueling or not.
A NOx content in the air of our city lets us know how bad the contamination level is, etc.

Therefore, it can be seen that indicators give information that allow us to take actions. In general, indicators show different information at the same time. Let’s considerer again the fuel gauge; it can tell you that you have a fourth of a tank, say about 15 liters.

From here, and if you are in a highway, you can take a decision, on what the next step will be, for instance, you think:

You check your gauge and find out that there are only 15 liters left. Since about one hour ago and 100 km back, you checked the gauge and found that you had half a tank, that is 30 liters, you think “This is weird….., how much fuel my car is using?. It appears to be too much”. You reach this conclusion knowing that the average consumption of your car is about 190 km with 20 liters of fuel. A mental calculation shows that your car burnt a little too much for a distance of 100 km. In other words it shows that something is apparently amiss. Again, you can make a decision of stopping in the next gas station to have the gas circuit checked, or just for filling up the tank and then continue, making a mental note to recheck the gas consumption in the next leg, before going to a mechanic at your destination.

Then, minutes later, an alarm rings in the dashboard indicating that water temperature in the engine is too high. In this circumstance the driver, may find convenient to reverse his/her former decision and indeed return to the gas station to find out the cause of high water temperature. In this case, the second indicator overrules a former decision.

Sometimes, indicators can be designed to control conditions that have been set up for the achievement of a certain objective, or, conversely, they can be used to adopt an action based on the information they provide. To illustrate these two concepts better, imagine a person is ready to initiate a 900 km trip driving his/her car. The trip plan is to reach the destination in eight hours, that is an average of 112 km/hr, but this estimate does not consider that the driver has to stop to stretch his/her legs, for a cup of coffee, and for visiting the washroom. Consequently, if the driver considers in reaching the destination in eight hours, he/she will need to drive a little faster, say at 120 /km/hr, therefore, he/she will be watching the odometer and speedometer in order to adjust the driving to these values.

By considering the car’s age (one indicator), the condition of its tires (a second indicator), fuel consumption (a third indicator), and the road and traffic conditions (a fourth indicator), the driver may prefer instead to establish a maximum speed limit. That is, the driver may decide that she’d be better off to set the arrival time so as to comply with these safety factors imposed, for instance to a maximum of 100 km/hr.

In other words, in the first case one sets the indicator values, while in the second case indicator values will establish what to do.

Indicators can be used practically on everything, including city planning. Of course in here there will be indicators of a different nature, and in many different areas.

Probably the reader is asking “what is all of this related with indicators?”

According to the first step we will able to learn that the city has a 3 % of its population living in shanty houses, that we have 450 hectares of parks, that 30 % of the population is connected to the sewage, etc. Some of these results do not need any answer or number, e.g. nobody should live in a makeshift house, but if statistics show that the average water consumption is 97 liters per person and per day, we can say “Fine, but what does it mean, is it a lot of water, is it very little or is enough?” For this we need an indicator, which is a relationship, a standard that tells us how much a person needs of water in a daily basis.

Hazel Henderson (1991) [Henderson H,1991] makes a very illustrative comparison when she says that:

“Trying to run a complex society on only a single indicator like the Gross National Product is like trying to fly a Boeing 747 with only one gauge on the instrument panel, imagine if your Doctor, when giving you a check up, did no more than check your blood pressure”.

According to the goals that we want to reach, multiple urban indicators exist that can be considered, ie, according to the particular case of the improvements that we want to make. As said earlier, we can make a comparison between the existing values and their progress once certain measurements or the final values that we want to reach are implemented.

Basically, an efficient way to compare is making a table with both values, as the following example:

Carrying capacity in each area	Social Ecological Economic and Administrative
Social problems in the city	Percentage unemployment Drug consumption Ratio of crime / population Number of children working the streets Ratio of homeless people / population Water consumption per capita Percentage of children with low birth weight Percentage of single mothers Percentage of households managed by women Ratio of car ownership / population Gini index of distribution How is the relationship among the different ethnic groups of the city?
Safety	Crime rate Road accidents Prostitution Trend of thefts
Economic infrastructure	Ratio of population / main economic activities Ratio of economic output per activity / total economic output Ratio of local suppliers/input to large local plants Ratio of total income in different areas of the city Number of paved streets per area Number of houses connected to sewage Percentage of population with access to clean water Percentage of total output that the city exports to another areas or countries Percentage of raw materials the city imports from other areas or countries Percentage of value added per industry What plans are there to revitalize run-down areas of the city? What use is to be given to land not in use near railway tracks?
IInfrastructure	Potable water quality Losses in the network Quality of treated sewage discharged Percentage of houses connected to sewage Percentage of houses with cesspools Percentage of streets in bad repair Percentage of time lost because of traffic jams Percentage of approval of transportation system Fare structure Number of times per year streets are flooded due to heavy rains Average travel time in the transit system Average car occupancy How is the state of repair of public buildings controlled? How is the state of repair of road and rail bridges controlled? What plans are there to repair and rebuild city assets, such as buildings, sidewalks, tunnels, bridges, etc.? What is the frequency of garbage and recyclables collection? How does the city manage the heavy traffic of trucks?
Structure of City Hall	Efficiency Good governance Percentage of corruption cases in the last 10 years Percentage of public works or projects initiated and finished in one administration Number of community centres Ratio of municipal employees / population Number of meetings between citizens and the City Hall on city issues Number of citizen suggestions that have been put in practice Trend in taxes collected How is the communication between City Hall and citizens? How is the system to hire personnel? What is the average distance between the barycentre of an area and the next fire station?
Health care	Ratio of population / hospital beds Ratio of population / doctors Ratio of population / administrative personnel Ratio of population number of ambulances Average waiting time for emergency services Average waiting time for an ambulance Percentage of infectious diseases Ratio of number of walk-in clinics / population
Primary and secondary education	Location of schools related with population density Average age of school buildings Average distance a child must walk to school Ratio of children / floor space, in m2 Number of drop-outs before finishing school
Tertiary education	Ratio of university students / population Percentage of students completing a career Percentage of graduates finding a job in the city Average of people from secondary level who enter to the tertiary level
Housing	Percentage of people owning a house Ratio of household income / rental Ratio of household income / mortgage Number of houses without basic infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage. pavement) Percentage of people with clear titles Number of people per house Environment Average air quality at soil level (NOx, CO2, CO, SO2 particulate) Average soil contamination Degree of contamination of rivers and lagoons (in BOD5) Percentage of solid waste land-filled Percentage of solid waste with in-source recycling Percentage of solid waste in landfill recycling Ratio of litter on streets / person Number of m2 of green space per person Ratio of kilometres of bicycle paths / population How does the city control that cars are running in good condition, regarding noxious emissions? How does the city manage hazardous wastes from hospitals and industries? How does the city manage recyclables? Does the city have a green belt? Ratio of new construction / decrease of agricultural area How is the average density in the city? How is noise abated in urban highways? What measures are being taken to increase wildlife in the city parks? What are the regulations and penalties for killing an animal?
Not satisfied needs	Social area Environment Economics
Energy	Percentage of electric consumption generated by non-conventional sources Percentage of electric energy generated by hydro Measures taken to reduce emissions in the local power plant Is there any chance of producing acid rain with the combination of emissions from the power plants and other utilities? What indications are there of energy-saving measures?
Transportation	Mode of transportation Is there a regional system? Bus Dedicated highways for buses Street cars Subways LRT Bike Boat Ferries Ratio of kms of urban highways / population What are the measures taken to reduce traffic accidents?
Geography	How well is the city interconnected? How clean is the water in canals, rivers, creeks and lagoons? How clean is the harbour?
Cultural	What programs exist for people to attend theatres, festivals, concerts, etc.? How many museums does the city have? How many art galleries does the city have? How many libraries does the city have, and what percentage of the city budget is spent on this activity?

The baseline values can be determined by simple observation of present day conditions and statistics, such as those considering employment and unemployment in the city, crime rate, accidents, water quality, connections to sewage, and so on.

We can establish our goals considering international and local standards such as square meters of green space by inhabitant, water consumption per capita, air contamination, etc. Why do we say international or local standards? Because conditions vary country to country and even region to region. A country rich in water sources can afford to give its citizens more water per capita than a country where water is scarce. In the last case, goal standards should consider local conditions.

Another aspect that should be taken into account is the carrying capacity of each resource that is how much we can use of it in a certain period without depletion. In other words, we have to set our goals that must be attuned with the regenerative capacity of each resource.

In reality, once our baseline is established we will be able to assert how is the situation ‘now’, and when we set our goals we will be able to develop plans, projects and plans to reach these goals.

Henderson, H. ; 1991. “Paradigms in progress: Life beyond economics”. Knowledge Systems: Indianapolis, IN.

Munier, N. ; 2005. “Introduction to Sustainability: Road to a Better Future”, Springer.