Embedding environmental, economic and social indicators in the evaluation of the sustainability of the municipalities of Galicia (northwest of Spain)

Abstract

Cities today are dense networks of interchanging investments, information, goods and people, as well as centers of innovation and knowledge management. In such a complex framework of housing, social and economic interrelationships, cities become large consumers of resources and producers of greenhouse gases. Therefore, and in order to preserve resources and guarantee social services and the well-being of citizens, planning and policy actions are required that contribute to achieving sustainable growth. Beyond the environmental perspective, a socio-economic analysis is essential to make a comprehensive sustainability diagnosis of urban and rural systems. This paper presents a methodology for sustainability assessment, based on 38 indicators that include the three pillars of sustainability: social, economic and environmental. In this study, 64 municipalities out of 313 located in Galicia (North-west Spain) were selected with the aim of identifying those that can be considered sustainable, belonging to three categories depending on the population size: Medium Size, Small Size and Village. Moreover, two weighting methods have been considered (equal weighting and measured weighting attributed through Analytic Hierarchy Process method). The results show that the northern provinces of A Coruña and Lugo, have obtained a greater number of sustainable municipalities than the southern provinces of Ourense and Pontevedra due mainly to economic factors. On the other hand, 57 % of the medium-sized municipalities is rated sustainable applying either equal or measured weighting while 45% and 44% of the municipalities in the categories of Village and Small Size are identified as sustainable. Therefore, municipal size is relevant for measuring sustainability and there are no significant differences between the results obtained with the two weighting methodologies, indicating that the method developed is robust and could be applied to other municipalities and cities.