Ecological Economics 33 2000 7 – 27
METHODS
Sustainability assessment of development scenarios: methodology and application to Thailand
Peter Nijkamp, Ron Vreeker
Department of Spatial Economics, Free Uni6ersity, De Boelelaan
1105
,
1081
HV Amsterdam, Netherlands Received 22 February 1999; received in revised form 4 August 1999; accepted 6 October 1999
Abstract
This paper aims to offer an applicable evaluation framework for assessing sustainable development strategies at the regional level, with a particular view on the treatment of uncertain information. After a survey of various regional
sustainable development studies, several methodological issues pertaining to regional sustainability are presented and discussed, which lay the foundation for the central approach in this paper, viz. the use of critical threshold values.
Based on a multidimensional indicator system, a systematic multicriteria model is proposed by employing the recently developed and user-friendly flag model. This model is able to take into consideration various relevant classes of non
compliance with critical threshold values. By means of this model an empirical case study is undertaken for the SongkhlaHat Yai area in southern Thailand. Three policy scenario’s decentralization, sectoral and regional
promotion and environmental protection are systematically evaluated using a blend of the above-mentioned critical threshold value and the flag approach. It is concluded that in general the decentralization policy is slightly more
preferable than the sectoral and regional development scenario and significantly more preferable than the environ- mental protection scenario for the region concerned. The analytical tools used a qualitative systems approach, the
use of critical threshold values and the flag model appeared to yield a satisfactory contribution to sustainability assessment, even in case of qualitative information. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords
:
Decentralised policy; Regional development; Environmental protection www.elsevier.comlocateecolecon
1. The regional dimension of sustainability
The sustainability debate is already more than a decade old. It has generated a wealth of research
and policy discussion on the meaning, measurabil- ity and feasibility of sustainable development
Van Pelt, 1993. Despite some intrinsic ambiguity
Corresponding author. Tel.: + 20-444-6088; fax: + 20- 444-6004.
E-mail address
:
rvreekerecon.vu.nl R. Vreeker 0921-800900 - see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 1 - 8 0 0 9 9 9 0 0 1 3 5 - 4
in the concept of sustainability, it has prompted policy-makers to formulate new strategies for
achieving a balanced economic and technological pathway that would safeguard our precious envi-
ronment, not only here and now, but also else- where and in the future.
For economists, the notion of sustainable devel- opment has meant a new major challenge, as they
were forced to broaden existing analytical frame- works towards the domain of ecological systems
or even international negotiation tables van den Bergh, 1996. Up until now, many economic stud-
ies were rather abstract and theoretical in nature seeking for optimal trajectories or game theoretic
equilibria, but an increasing number of studies can be found which offer interesting applied
work.
At the same time we observe also a rising interest in research which moves away from
global sustainability analysis towards empirical policy-relevant research at the regional and urban
level Giaoutzi and Nijkamp, 1994; Capello et al., 1999. This new interest in regional sustainability
analysis is caused by several factors: a region is a properly demarcated area with some degree of
homogeneity which allows for a more operational empirical investigation; a region is usually also
subject to properly regulated administrative com- petence and control, so that there is more scope
for a relevant policy analysis of sustainability issues; and finally, the statistical data base at a
regional level is often more appropriate for moni- toring, analyzing and modeling the economy and
ecology of an area Nijkamp, 1999.
A wide range of recent studies can be found which address explicitly the regional aspects of
sustainability issues. Some illustrative examples are: a sustainability analysis of communal range-
lands by Abel 1997, regional resource investiga- tion by van den Bergh 1996, sustainability
analysis of agricultural pesticide policies by Dou- ven 1996, value function approach on regional
solid waste management by Beinat 1997, study on soil degradation and economic development in
Ghana by Knut et al. 1997, an economic analy- sis of deforestation in Mexico by Barbier and
Burgess 1996, study on wildlife management, land use and policy conflicts by Schulz and Skon-
foft 1996, study on environmental economics in poor countries by Dasgupta and Ma¨ler 1996,
case study on natural resource degradation effects of poverty and population growth by Heath and
Binswanger 1996, study on the operational defi- nition and measurement of sustainability by Mu-
nasinghe
and Shearer
1996, analysis
of sustainable land use by Finco and Nijkamp
1997, dynamic input-output analysis of sustain- able logging in Indonesia Hamilton, 1997, a case
study on a sustainable fishery by Charles 1997, study on the development of an ecological eco-
nomic simulation model of mountain fynbos ecosystems Higgins et al., 1997, and a study on
sustainable agricultural development options for Greek islands by Nijkamp and Ouwersloot 1998.
It should be noted that the openness of a regional system may create a complication, as
externalities may be imported or exported via trade or dispersion of pollution. Consequently,
some authors make a distinction between internal and external sustainability, where external sus-
tainability takes also into consideration the spillover effects to and from other areas cf. the
notion of the ecological footprint; Wackernagel and Rees, 1996. Clearly, seen from this perspec-
tive, sustainability is context-specific and may hence be co-determined by needs and opportuni-
ties in a given region as part of a broader spatial system.
The above concise overview is by no means representative nor exhaustive, but highlights sev-
eral important research issues. There appears to be an increasing empirical and policy orientation
in regional sustainability analysis. Next, the range of subjects is vast, although there is some clear
bias towards agricultural and land use studies. It is also noteworthy that the theoretical frameworks
and the methodological foundations do not ex- hibit a high degree of commonality. Apparently,
the research undertaken at the regional level is largely driven by case study orientation, without
the explicit goal of developing a more widely applicable analytical framework for assessing re-
gional sustainable development.
The present paper aims to offer a new method- ological framework that is fairly general in nature
and may in principle be used for a variety of case
studies on spatial sustainability. The paper is or- ganized as follows. In Section 2 some specific
methodological reflections on sustainability analy- sis will be offered, followed by the presentation of
an operational framework for assessing sustain- able development at the regional level by means
of a so-called critical threshold value approach, which is put in the context of a decision support
method by using the recently developed flag model. The remaining part of the paper is devoted
to a case study on the SongkhlaHat Yai area in Southern Thailand. After a concise description of
the natural and regional economic development problems in this area Section 3, the analysis
proceeds with the presentation of an empirical impact assessment approach for the area, sustain-
able development by the design of various devel- opment scenarios Section 4. The application of
the flag model and its empirical findings are pre- sented in Section 5. The paper is concluded with a
final evaluative section.
2. A decision support method for regional sustainability assessment
