Measuring Sustainable Development at the Lower Regional Level in the Czech Republic based on Composite Indicators : Measuring Sustainable Development in Czech LAU 1 Regions using Composite Indicators

Abstract

Measuring sustainable development is a highly significant issue as there is neither a unified set of indicators nor any preferred methodology on how to do it. This is despite continual attempts to evaluate entities from the point of view of sustainable development. The most problematic level according to sustainable development assessment seems to be the “lower” regional levels, such as LAU 1 (former NUTS 4) level. On one hand, there are usually at this level already serious problems with data availability, on the other, it is almost impossible to regularly perform detailed questionnaire surveys in all LAU 1 regions (77 districts in case of the Czech Republic), as it is done in cities. The aim of the paper is to decide how to assess sustainability at this level. Relevant indicators, although different from indicators used at the national or NUTS 3 level, with data available for all LAU 1 regions were selected. We succeeded in filling all the three pillars of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) with a sufficient number of suitable indicators. For the first phase, cluster analysis was applied to find coherences among regions that are affected by similar problems. Composite indicators were then constructed in order to create a ranking of all 77 districts. Ranking was derived from this composite indicator approach. Ten composite indicators were constructed to test different methods of normalisation, weighting and aggregation. The results show the ranking of LAU 1 regions in the Czech Republic from the sustainability perspective, both including and excluding the capital city of Prague as an outlying district. A good interconnection between cluster analysis and constructed composite indicators can be seen; this is also supported by the discussion of the result