5.1 DEVELOPMENT OF INDICATORS IN SUSDEV21
5.1.1 The Indicators developed under the SUSDEV21 study are aimed at providing decision makers with means of capturing in a manageable form the full range of economic, environmental and social issues associated with a particular decision, and therefore contribute to defining and measuring progress towards sustainable development. For ease of use, and to encourage those responsible for developing projects and plans in the HKSAR Government to 'think sustainably', the indicators are incorporated within a decision support tool called the CASET, which guides users through a detailed consideration of the effects their project or plan may have on life in Hong Kong.
5.1.2 In addition, by succinctly summarising the issues and concerns, the indicators provide an effective means of communicating and discussing the sustainability implications of different courses of action with stakeholders such as the public, the business sector and Non-Governmental Organisations. This very much reflects the intention of Chapter 40 of Agenda 21, which identifies the development of indicators for sustainable development as a key activity for improving decision-making.
5.1.3 Indicators can thus be very simply described as quantified information which helps to explain how things change over time, and which can then used to assess how sustainable a society's activities are over time. The role of sustainable development indicators in policy and project appraisal is particularly important since:
they provide a means of quantifying environmental, social and economic impacts of proposals;
they can help to provide clarity out of the mass of data available;
they can help to measure the extent to which policies aimed at sustainability objectives are being achieved; and
they can be useful in communicating impacts to a wider non-technical audience.
5.1.4 The indicators developed in the SUSDEV21 study represent the final, most specific, level in a process of focusing in from a broad definition of what sustainable development means for the HKSAR, through the elaboration of that definition in Guiding Principles, which express the sustainability aims for particular aspects of life in Hong Kong, such as the economy, or natural resource use, to the indicators themselves, which, as pointed out above, encapsulate a range of particular issues associated with each Guiding Principle, and quantitatively express them.
5.2 CURRENT OPERATION OF SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS
5.2.1 In the Spring of 2001, the Government inaugurated the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) comprising a small team of sustainability specialists, reporting directly to the Chief Secretary via the Director of Administration.
5.2.2 One of the main responsibilities of the Unit is to champion the consideration of sustainability issues in Government decision making, principally via encouraging and assisting Departments and Bureaux in undertaking 'sustainability assessments' of the larger projects and policies they develop. This puts into action an initiative announced by the Chief Executive in his 1999 Policy Address to require all major projects and policies to be subjected to such an assessment.
5.2.3 As part of their efforts to fulfil this responsibility, the SDU has recently promulgated a Guidance Note, "Guideline on Sustainability Assessment" which has been distributed to all Bureaux and Departments.
5.2.4 The guidance issued by the SDU does not mandate the use of the CASET tool, which is the current repository of the sustainability indicators, in undertaking these assessments. However, the SDU personnel have devoted considerable effort in the past eight months to providing training in the use of the tool to Department and Bureau representatives, and in explaining its benefits. The use of the tool, and hence the consideration of the indicators, is thus being actively encouraged within Government.
5.2.5 An interesting development in the CASET tool is that several new indicators have been added to the original suite developed in the course of the SUSDEV21 study, while several of the original indicators have been modified, illustrating the 'live' nature of the tool and its intended ability to evolve and adjust to changing circumstances and priorities. The current study is thus another contributor to the evolution and improvement of the sustainability evaluation process.
5.3 CRITERIA FOR ADOPTION OF INDICATORS
5.3.1 There are a number of attributes that influence how successful an indicator will be at achieving the aims outlined in Section 5.1. In an ideal world, all indicators would have all of these attributes, but that is very rarely achievable, and the pragmatic approach usually adopted is to use them as a guide when selecting indicators with the aim of capturing as many of them as possible.
5.3.2 The attributes have evolved internationally over time with the use of indicators, and the indicators developed for SUSDEV 21 have been based upon them. The SUSDEV21 Study Reports also recommended that they be referred to when identifying future indicators, such as under the current Study. The attributes are that indicators should be:
simple and robust;
policy relevant (representative);
sensitive to change;
easily understood;
measurable;
have a target level or guideline against which to compare it;
capable of showing trends over time;
scientifically or analytically valid;
capable of being updated at regular intervals;
measurable through existing or readily available data; and
based on data adequately documented and of known and acceptable quality.
5.3.3 In addition to the 'over-arching' attributes above, the development of sustainability indicators for SUSDEV 21 was also guided by a number of study-specific criteria, which, again, would also be applicable to future indicators. These are described in Table 5.1.
5.3.4 A further important point is that the indicators are intended to focus on "outputs" of environmental, social and economic change, rather than on drivers/causes of change or sectoral interests. This approach has a practical advantage in that it enables changes in different sectors (eg transport, waste management, natural resources etc) to be picked up using cross-sectoral indicators (eg air quality indicators, GDP or income differential) rather than developing less flexible sector-specific indicators.
5.3.5 More importantly, however, the "outputs" approach recognises that sustainability is concerned with taking a holistic view and that it is the impacts of change, rather than the changes themselves, that are important when establishing how the economy, community or environment is affected by a project or policy.
5.3.6 For example, a point raised frequently during the SUSDEV21 public consultation process was why population was not adopted as a sustainability indicator. The reason is that changes in population and demographic trends are drivers of other effects (e.g. increased natural resource use, strain on community facilities) rather than impacts themselves. A particular population figure is not inherently unsustainable - what is crucial to sustainability are the consumption patterns adopted by a population and their effect on sustainability issues such as resource efficiency, social provision and pollution (1000 people from Los Angeles exert a very different level of pressure on sustainability than do 1000 from Lhasa).
5.3.7 Another important consideration in the selection of indicators for use in the system developed for the HKSAR is whether evaluative criteria could be identified for them. Evaluative criteria provide benchmarks or guidelines to enable the users of CASET to judge whether the change in an indicator, illustrating the impacts of a proposal being assessed, is in a positive or negative direction, and whether the amount of that change is significant or not. In this way, while not seeking to imply whether a change in an indicator is acceptable or not in the overall consideration of the project (this is the role of the decision-maker), the criteria provide information as to the relative scale of the change to an indicator. From this, they provide the decision-maker with a form of reference framework against which the changes to the various indicators affected by a project or policy can be judged.
5.3.8 The next step from the evaluative criteria is the setting of a target value for the indicator concerned, which is a specific threshold (e.g. relating to a statutory guideline or standard) or target for achievement, against which the change in the indicator can be evaluated. The target value can thus be an aspirational figure, either reflecting a level of improvement, or a level of recovery or restoration, to be achieved by some point in the future.
5.3.9 In many instances with the existing SUSDEV21 indicators, however, specific targets have not yet been developed and so the evaluative criterion has been expressed in terms of the preferred direction for a positive change in the indicator (ie the evaluative criterion would be that the level of a particular indicator should increase, rather than increase to a particular point).
5.4 POTENTIAL INDICATORS FOR LANDSCAPE
5.4.1 As the UK Countryside Agency states, Landscape Indicators "need to provide a good indication of change in character"Key characteristics represent the essential character of individual areas but they are too general to act as indicators in their own right. Instead specific features or attributes need to be selected from the key characteristics. These need to be:
central to the distinctive character of the type or area
liable to experience change either in extent or in their condition.
5.4.2 "Indicators will need to be defined precisely. The desired direction of change of chosen indicators must be known. For individual features the desired direction of change may be different depending on landscape character. For example, in one area an increase in woodland cover may be desirable while in another area it may not." (Countryside Agency, 1999, pp.82-83)
Potential Landscape Indicators
5.4.3 Two Landscape Indicators are proposed which would work in parallel(1). These are:
An indicator to monitor change in features with a positive effect on the character of an LCT - what are termed Characteristic Landscape Features in Section 4 above;
An indicator to monitor change in features with a negative effect on the character of a given LCT - what are termed 'Uncharacteristic Development' in Section 4 above.
5.4.4 The key to understanding the indictors is that they are defined by reference to features or types of development that are important within the context of a certain LCT or LCTs only and not in all LCTs.
Characteristic Landscape Features
5.4.5 CLFs are a measure primarily of change of positive aspects of landscape character and are linked to landscape value in so far as the features selected in each LCT are indices of positive landscape character and are related to consensual judgements as to their value. (This contrasts with the 'landscape parameters' used to map the landscape, which have a neutral value). CLFs are reflections or elaborations of features which the general body of international consensus (see above) and empirical study has shown, may be correlated with landscape value.
5.4.6 For each LCT one would identify a number of landscape features which together comprise the essence of the (positive) character of the LCT. There would probably only be 4-5 max. for each LCT. Note that it is possible that a certain feature (e.g. woodland) may be characteristic in one LCT, but not in another, even though it may be present in small amounts in the latter.
5.4.7 The proposed indicator would be "Percentage change to Characteristic Landscape Features". A long-list of Characteristic Landscape Features is set out in Table 5.2.
5.4.8 No attempt would be made to aggregate the scores for CLFs. The Indicator expresses landscape change as a positive or negative change in these features.
Uncharacteristic Development
5.4.9 Uncharacteristic development is the different types of development that the appraisal of landscape sensitivity in Section 4 above identifies as being uncharacteristic of a particular LCT. Therefore any development of that kind within an LCT in which it is identified as being uncharacteristic, will be a negative influence on landscape character.
5.4.10 Provided that the categories of Uncharacteristic Development adequately define height categories for each type of development, Uncharacteristic Development can be measured in terms of area. Any positive change in Uncharacteristic Development can be assumed to be a negative impact on landscape character. Conversely, reduction in the area of Uncharacteristic Development will indicate a positive change in landscape character.
5.4.11 The types of development considered would relate to the land use planning designations and development control parameters defined in the Outline Zoning Plans Town Planning Ordinance. (It should be noted that it is possible that Column 2 uses under a given OZP could be classified as Uncharacteristic Development in some circumstances).
5.4.12 A matrix will be produced which identifies whether or not each potential development type would be uncharacteristic in any given LCT.
5.5 DISCUSSION OF LANDSCAPE INDICATOR AND SUGGESTED INDICATOR TARGET EVALUATION CRITERION
5.5.1 A key virtue of the Landscape Indicator proposed is that it monitors change to the positive aspects of landscape character as well as change to the negative aspects. This is a powerful tool for fully capturing all dimensions of landscape change.(2)
5.5.2 Although there is no aggregation between individual CLFs or between CLFs and Uncharacteristic Developments, this is not necessary as it can be assumed that any negative change to any CLF will have a negative effect on character. Cross-comparison between CLFs is in any case, not a valid form of analysis as landscape character cannot be maintained at existing levels within any given LCULCA by increasing one CLF whilst reducing the quantity of another CLF.
5.5.3 It is not practically possible to quantify for any given LCT what area or percentage of the total LCT must be occupied by any CLF in order to preserve its character. For this reason, it is suggested that the precautionary principle be applied: namely that any loss of an CLF or increase in Uncharacteristic Development be treated as a significant change to landscape character.
5.5.4 The recommended target for Landscape is therefore "No loss of CLFs and no net increase in Uncharacteristic Development". It is important to note that this targetevaluation criterion does not preclude loss of certain landscape features, nor does it preclude construction of any type of development, merely that decision-makers should be aware of developments which affect landscape features which are important to certain areas or where development is not characteristic of a certain area.
(1) In response to Government comment, the proposed Indicators will be critically reviewed as the Study progresses, with a view to simplifying them.
(2) After comment from Government, the
viability of reflecting 'landscape value' in the Landscape Indicator will be explored as
the Study progresses.
