A Conceptual Study of Sustainable City Indicators: with Priority Given to Environmental Indicators

도시지속성지표 구축을 위한 개념적 연구: 환경적 지속성지표를 중심으로

Nowadays, the environmental conservation has become a hot issue. Also the sustainable city issue is recognized as one of the most important tasks to be solved urgently for urban development. Therefore, the current indicator for sustainable city has been analyzed only as a segment of the environmental indicator which is one kind of branch of social indicator. However, considering the degree of pollution and heightened concern, it is time to develop a new and improved framework for the analysis of the sustainable city indicator. This study aims for the development of sustainable city indicator and the examination of practical method for the use of them. Urban sustainable city indicators are based on the "Pressure-State-Response (PSR) framework" which has been adopted by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The indicators suggested in this study is composed of the following categories: 1. Indicators of natural environment itself, such as land structure (available land use index etc.), bio-species (bio-diversity index etc.), environment resources (water quantity index etc.) 2. Indicators of relationship between man and environment, such as sustainability of using material (recycle of water index etc.), pressure size (pressure index on air etc.), effort of prevention (environmental basic facility index, etc.) 3. Indicators of environmental state, such as landscape and culture (historical & cultural index etc.), environmental pollution (air pollution index etc.) A sustainable city environment is necessary and obtainable, yet its realization seems to be difficult. The urban pollution problems have become more serious than ever before thus requiring much interest. Therefore, this kind of study is meaningful for the establishment of policy objective, and the development and management environmentally sound and sustainable cities.