A conceptual framework to assess sustainability in urban ecological systems

Contemporary approaches in urban ecology should take into account interactions and feedbacks between socio-ecological dimensions. Sustainability indicators are key tools to assess such integration, but initiatives are diverse and there is no agreed framework for the assessment of such interactions and feedbacks. Despite this formidable challenge, several attempts have been made to reach out beyond the traditional subject areas of environment, economy and society in frameworks for indicators of sustainable development. While efforts to develop such a methodology have been made from different scales and levels of analyses, as we descend to the local scale, initiatives are multiplied. There is a need to channel the diversity of these various initiatives and standardize some concepts and methods. In this paper I deal with the pros and cons of the most commonly applied conceptual frameworks, looking for a method able to optimize the main purposes of sustainable development indicators. Starting from this foundation, I build a new proposal combining different methods previously applied in some research fields. A single Hierarchical Framework, developed to assess sustainable forest management is represented graphically through a visual model presented in the Johannesburg Summit of 2002, the Dashboard of Sustainability. An appraisal of the local contribution to global sustainability is obtained by introducing the Ecological Footprint into the methodological procedure.