Integrating urban ecosystem sustainability assessment into policy-making: insights from the Gold Coast City
Author
Dizdaroglu, D.
Yigitcanlar, T.
Date
2016Source Title
Journal of Environmental Planning and Management
Print ISSN
0964-0568
Electronic ISSN
1360-0559
Publisher
Routledge
Volume
59
Issue
11
Pages
1982 - 2006
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
128
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203
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Abstract
This paper introduces a policy-making support tool called ‘Micro-level Urban-ecosystem Sustainability IndeX (MUSIX)’. The index serves as a sustainability assessment model that monitors six aspects of urban ecosystems – hydrology, ecology, pollution, location, design, and efficiency – based on parcel-scale indicators. This index is applied in a case study investigation in the Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia. The outcomes reveal that there are major environmental problems caused by increased impervious surfaces from growing urban development in the study area. The findings suggest that increased impervious surfaces are linked to increased surface runoff, car dependency, transport-related pollution, poor public transport accessibility, and unsustainable built environment. This paper presents how the MUSIX outputs can be used to guide policy-making through the evaluation of existing policies.
Keywords
Composite index sustainability assessment;;Gold Coast City
Parcel-scale spatial analysis
Sustainability assessment
Urban ecosystem
Australia