Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 459468

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Ecological Economics
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / e c o l e c o n

Methods

Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity: A tool for regional sustainability assessment

M.L.M. Graymore a,, Neil G. Sipe b, Roy E. Rickson b
a b

School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, PO Box 423, Deakin University, Warrnambool, VIC 3280 Australia Grifth School of Environment, Grifth University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Regional sustainability is an important focus for natural resource management. Measuring how social and economic systems are progressing to sustainability is therefore a critical need. But it is dependent upon the development of analytical and methodological tools to measure progress, particularly, we argue, at the regional level. Achieving sustainability at the regional scale is important since it's at this scale where social institutions and ecological functioning are most closely linked. However, our recent study that evaluated the effectiveness of current sustainability assessment methods at the regional scale found methods developed for the global, national and state scales are not entirely effective at assessing sustainability at this spatial scale. Following on from this critique, we developed and tested a new method for assessing sustainability, which we believe is applicable at the regional scale. The framework, Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity (SHCC), evaluates the sustainability of regional human activities by considering the pressures these activities have on regional ecosystems. SHCC was tested and evaluated at the regional scale, demonstrating its potential to be an effective method for monitoring sustainability. It also has potential to be used to inform the community and decision makers about the sustainability of their region, and help guide strategic planning to progress sustainability. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 25 November 2008 Received in revised form 14 July 2009 Accepted 14 August 2009 Available online 16 September 2009 Keywords: Sustainability assessment Regional Sustainability indicators Human carrying capacity Sustainability index

1. Introduction The regional scale is important for progressing sustainability since regions incorporate the complex interactions of ecological, social and economic phenomena (Conacher and Conacher, 2000). It is also the scale which links multiple spatial and temporal scales of biodiversity with human uses and socio-economic imperatives (Brunckhorst, 2005 p6). Thus, regional planning and natural resource management increasingly concentrate on regional sustainability as a key objective of planning. Furthermore, it is at this scale where we can more easily and accurately than at a local community, state or national scale, measure concrete relationships between natural, social and economic systems; thus, providing opportunities for re-conguration of institutional systems for more sustainable resource governance (Kim and Weaver, 1994; Forman, 1995; Brunckhorst, 2000; Buckingham and Theobald, 2003). Arbitrarily dened boundaries are a problem for regional planners as regional boundaries are often set dependent on what is being managed, with natural resource management boundaries rarely aligned with administration boundaries (Gore, 1984). This presents a barrier for holistic systems management and sustainability assessment as data for social and ecological indicators describe different regions. A lack of clear, well-dened boundaries is also evident when trying to isolate material and human in-ows and out-ows from regions necessary to assess sustainability. For this paper, the region is dened as an area
Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 5563 3211; fax: +61 3 5563 3462. E-mail address: michelle.graymore@deakin.edu.au (M.L.M. Graymore). 0921-8009/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.08.016

encompassing complex inter-related catchment or watershed areas. Thus, in our denition, a region includes complex civil, economic and political actors, their formal negotiations and informal conversations, which affect how they, individually or together, respond to sustainability issues and develop and implement practical sustainability goals. Regions incorporate but are conceptually and practically, when considering application of management initiatives, distinct from neighbourhoods, local communities, states (provinces) and nations. Communities and neighbourhoods as social and economic actors are too narrowly focused on limited areas. While the state and nation is too broadly based as a social and political entity to effectively incorporate activities other than formal political action carried out by party political actors, formally organized private industry, public sector agencies, and civil society organizations. Sustained face-to-face social relationships, at this level, are inuential, but primarily represent those between largescale private and public organizations such as industries, civil and environmental associations and state or national government agencies. At these levels, we are dealing largely with relationships among elites representing powerful organizations that are national and often international in scope (Miller, 1975). However, regions are small enough that sustained and reexive face-to-face relations and communication among strategic actors are possible. People and groups across the region can learn of and express their concern about concrete issues affecting them. Local community representatives have more direct access to decision-making groups than they have with state and national actors. Thus, direct participation by public groups and individuals is more likely at this level than in issues dominated by state actors. Yet the

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regional scale is large enough that the area is representative of complex interactions between ecological, socio-political and economic phenomena (Putnam, 2000; Buckingham and Theobald, 2003; Fung and Wright, 2003; Hoppe et al., 2007). Fung and Wright (2003) and Hoppe et al. (2007) emphasize that issues that are tangible, well-dened and seen as directly affecting people in neighbourhoods and communities, and by logical extension, regions encompassing communities, stimulate local interest and participation by those affected. Since effects and consequences spill easily across community and ecological boundaries, regional management is potentially more capable than local community management efforts. Ecological, social and economic interdependencies usually occur outside or overlap ordinary community boundaries. Thus a regional focus brings the interaction of ecological, economic and social factors into sharper relief than at local community scales. At the same time, public participation at the regional level is likely to be less politically charged than at the state and national scales where formal political alliances powerfully inuence how problems are dened and managed. Access to appropriate scientic and professional advice through the development of regional committees where professionals routinely participate with government representatives and local citizens facilitates the diffusion of scientic knowledge through policy and decision-making structures counteracting the emergence of authoritarian professional roles. However, management at this scale is not without its issues. Regions are not independent units (Rees and Wackernagel, 1994). Through trade and human movement the social and environmental impacts of human activity cross regional boundaries causing a region's sustainability to be dynamically linked to that of other areas. Regions are a heterogeneous mosaic, comprising natural ecosystems, productive or agro-ecosystems, and urban ecosystems, as well as heterogeneous social groups often in constant transition as the ruralurban boundary moves and land use changes (Allen, 2003). Such land use change, and the different practices of social groups, in a region are often competing, adding to the complexity of regional natural resource management (Allen, 2003). Furthermore, the differing institutional arrangements across regions add to the challenge of regional planning for sustainability. But uppermost among problems of measuring regional sustainability is that current methods are generally ineffective at regional levels (Graymore et al., 2008). Achieving regional sustainability requires assessment methods that reliably and validly measure regional sustainability and thereby increase the potential for well-informed planning and decision-making (Standing Committee on Agriculture and Resources Management, 1999; Morrissey et al., 2006). An effective sustainability assessment method provides information about the overall sustainability of a system without losing information about system parts. Its approach is necessarily holistic covering aspects of system viability, performance and sustainability with the largest impact on the overall system's sustainability (Bossel, 2000). Furthermore, it must bring the information together using an aggregation method that recognises a system, or a system dimension, which cannot be assessed in isolation from the systems it is dependent upon (Gustavson et al., 1999; Reed et al., 2005). Also, to be useful for decisionmaking, any sustainability assessment needs to have quantiable criterion for monitoring (Lee, 2006). Moreover, any policy relevant measurement framework should deliver information that is easy to understand and communicate to professionals, politicians, formal and informal stakeholders, and the general public so its potential to guide strategic planning for sustainability is maximised. Presenting accessible and understandable data facilitates public awareness about sustainability and advances the possibilities of transparent decision-making. But most importantly, and a primary focus of our paper, it must be able to assess sustainability at the regional scale. In a recent study, the effectiveness of ve commonly used sustainability assessment frameworksecological footprint, wellbeing assessment, quality of life, ecosystem health assessment and natural resource availabilitywere evaluated at the regional scale (see

Graymore et al., 2008). This study found that none of these methods were entirely effective at this scale, mainly due to the large amounts of data required for the assessments, much of which is not available at the regional scale (Graymore et al., 2008). Furthermore, the assessment methods were limited in their ability to fully assess regional sustainability, as they concentrated on the condition of part of the system without assessing the cause of any change. None of the methods evaluated used aggregation methods that combined indicators based on the interactions between indicators and their differing impacts on sustainability to produce an overall sustainability assessment without the loss of information about the system. Thus, we demonstrated the lack of an effective assessment method for sustainability monitoring and evaluation at the regional scale (Graymore et al., 2008). In that paper, we called for the development of a regional sustainability assessment framework based on the best science and data at the regional scale to produce an effective tool for regional managers to use in the adaptive management process (Holling, 1978; Lee, 1999). The method must be able to produce wellinformed decision-making, policy development and implementation of sustainability programs and management actions to help achieve regional sustainability. It also needs to facilitate learning about regional sustainability for managers. Furthermore, it must help raise community awareness about sustainability, so the community can understand and participate in the sustainability transition. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to develop a regional sustainability assessment framework that has the potential to be useful for the purposes discussed above. Section 2 develops a theory of regional sustainability based on human carrying capacity. Section 3 presents the method used to build and evaluate the sustainability assessment method, Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity (SHCC). Then Section 4 describes SHCC, which is based upon the theory of regional sustainability using indicators with data available at this scale. This method was tested at the regional scale using South East Queensland (SEQ) as the case study. The method was also evaluated to ensure it has the potential to be useful for regional managers to progress sustainability and raise community awareness about sustainability. Section 5 discusses the implications of the evaluation, including the capabilities, limitations and further development of SHCC. 2. Regional sustainability and carrying capacity Social and ecological systems are intimately linked through the social system's dependence on ecosystem goods and services and through its impacts on the ecological system. Thus, sustainability requires linked socialecological systems to produce no net negative impacts on either the social or ecological system (Berkes et al., 2000). This means humans must live within ecological limits to ensure ecosystems are able to continue to provide the goods and services which provide food, clean water, air and many other essential goods and services for this and future generations (Daily, 1997). Thus, the sustainability of linked socialecological systems is dependent on the health and functioning of its ecosystems, making environmental sustainability a key to sustainability. But sustainability also requires equal access to a good quality of life with choice of lifestyle and employment for all citizens. Thus, for regional sustainability to be achieved, human activities impacting on a region have to be within its ecological limits, including those occurring outside the region that impact on the region. At the same time, the impacts of human activities must also remain within a region's social and economic limits to ensure these systems are able to continue supporting its population by providing adequate health care, education, employment, welfare and all the other services required in an equitable manner. Additionally, the resilience of the system must be maintained to ensure its ability to absorb disturbances without a shift in state or function. To do this, the region's carrying capacity must not be exceeded. Thus, a sustainable region is one where human activity does not cause net negative impacts on the ecological, social or economic

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supporting systems ensuring the resilience, state and function of these interlinked systems can continue to support the population. How does this help us assess regional sustainability? Ideally, the carrying capacity of a region's ecological and social systems would be compared to the level of support populations require (e.g. food, services, water, land). But not only is the science required to calculate regional carrying capacity incomplete, the system itself is a moving target. Carrying capacity varies with factors such as climate variation, changes in human consumption and activity, and the ability to move resources where they are needed, which prevents the calculation of carrying capacity or the level of support required (Daily and Ehrlich, 1992; Ehrlich, 1994; Rees and Wackernagel, 1994; Holling et al., 2000). Therefore, there is an inherent unknowability, as well as unpredictability, concerning these evolving, managed ecosystems and the societies with which they are linked (Holling et al., 2000 p347). Thus, to guide the assessment of sustainability with current knowledge and within data availability limitations at the regional scale a conceptual model of regional sustainability has been developed (Fig. 1). Our model of regional sustainability centres on the concept of human carrying capacity (Rees and Wackernagel, 1994). Regions have limited capacity to provide resources and services. When this capacity is exceeded, the ability of a region's systems to support society is impaired as the functional integrity and productivity of the system is impacted (Rees and Wackernagel, 1994). Human carrying capacity is determined, in part, by the system's resilience, that is, its ability to absorb impacts from disturbances without changing its state or function (Berkes and Folke, 1994; Adger, 2000). Resilience itself is determined by the system's buffering capacity, diversity, redundancy, adaptive capacity, spatial heterogeneity, learning, ability to store knowledge and experience and exibility in problem solving (Folke et al., 2002; Walker et al., 2004). These factors are dependent on properties of the system. For example, the socio-economic buffering capacity is dependent upon the institutional and social structures, including social capacity and capability, strength of governance, economic efciency and economic diversity. Ecosystem buffering capacity depends on the health of the ecosystem, including physical systems, biodiversity and connectivity. The mechanisms of resilience

including buffering capacity, and the resultant resilience of the supporting systems add to a region's carrying capacity. Ecosystems and socio-economic systems, with more resilience, have a higher carrying capacity because they can absorb more impacts from human activities and other stresses without affecting their ability to provide essential goods and services. However, there are limits to how many impacts (including removal of parts of the system) an ecosystem can absorb before these impacts change the state and function of the system. This limit is the system's carrying capacity. Human activities place pressure on a region's socialecological systems impacting particularly on ecosystem structure and functioning, diversity, buffering capacity and in turn its resilience (Scheffer et al., 2001), reducing a region's carrying capacity. As ecosystem buffering capacities and resilience decline, the capacity of socialeconomic systems and ecosystems to respond to such pressures are reduced and their capacities to produce goods and services similarly decline. These changes ultimately impact on the human quality of life (Rapport et al., 1998) as issues of resource scarcity, management, access, equity and pricing occur within the socialeconomic system. The level of pressure human activities place on supporting systems depends on the types of activities, size and type of impacts, the number of people being supported or are carrying out the activity, the quality of life, equity and human choices about consumption and activities. Each activity causes different pressures on a region's supporting systems. Rapport et al. (1998) classied the major pressures causing ecosystems to transform from healthy to pathological states into four groups: 1) physical restructuring; 2) overharvesting; 3) waste residuals; and 4) introduction of exotic species (Fig. 2). Human activities can be placed in one or more of these categories depending on the pressure they place on carrying capacity. We argue that sustaining a region's carrying capacity to ensure humans can prosper, and ecosystems will survive and are at least resilient enough to maintain their integrity and function, is an important goal for all communities. Thus, we suggest that the goal for regional sustainability should be: the pressure caused by human activities cannot negatively impact on the resilience or carrying capacity of the region's ecosystems. However, there are no effective methods for measuring the resilience of systems or their exact carrying capacity. Therefore, we argue that a simple, yet effective, way of assessing regional sustainability is to assess the pressure placed on its ecosystems caused by human activities occurring in or impacting on a region against known or assumed thresholds for these pressures. This enables the use of information already available on the levels of human activities that place major pressure on the system and its natural capital along with knowledge on the sustainable thresholds of these activities. From this, we propose that an assessment of regional sustainability can be made by estimating if the pressures placed on the system have exceeded the sustainable threshold, and thus, whether a region's human activities have exceeded its carrying capacity. Therefore, the model of regional sustainability we developed here was used to produce a regional sustainability assessment framework, called Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity (SHCC). 3. Methods 3.1. Developing the regional sustainability assessment framework The framework presented assesses the major pressures caused by human activities against sustainability thresholds for these activities to determine if they have exceeded the human carrying capacity (Graymore, 2005). If these pressures are found to be at an unsustainable level by the assessment, the assessment suggests that human activity has exceeded the region's carrying capacity, in part, and is impacting on the resilience, state and function of its systems; hence the system is unsustainable. Thus, by covering all the major

Fig. 1. Conceptual model of regional sustainability.

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Fig. 2. Model of major pressures placed on ecosystems by human activities (adapted from Rapport et al. (1998)).

aspects of regional sustainability identied in the regional sustainability model (Fig. 1), this framework forms a holistic sustainability assessment. The methodology is based upon the Wellbeing Assessment framework developed by Prescott-Allen (2001) as the method is easy to use and the aggregation method produces information appropriate to a range of audiences without the loss of information (Graymore et al., 2008). Indicators are grouped into dimensions based on the regional sustainability model. For each dimension, the indicators chosen assess equity, population and major pressures human activities have on carrying capacity. Each indicator was required to: 1) have data available; 2) be relevant to sustainability and the dimension it was to be used; 3) reliably measure pressure against sustainability thresholds; and 4) have a known sustainability threshold, target or similar to enable the development of a sustainability scale for standardisation of data. The indicators chosen measured the largest impacts on carrying capacity, so the indicator set could be small and manageable, as other studies have shown that more indicators do not necessarily give a better assessment (Gustavson et al., 1999; Richards et al., 2007). Standardising indicator data to a common unit enables comparisons and aggregations of indicator data. For SHCC, for the standardisation of indicator data, a sustainability ranking scale was developed (Table 1), similar to that used in the Wellbeing Assessment. The scale was based on literature and expert opinion on sustainability thresholds/targets thought to be applicable worldwide. However, when SHCC is used, the rst step should include a review of the scales to ensure new information hasn't changed the understanding of what is sustainable for the indicator and that they are applicable to the region. The use of known or assumed sustainability thresholds or targets for the sustainability ranking allows for an assessment based on the best science available. A four-point scale was used so that indicator data can be

ranked without the need for calculations. Individual indicator ranks can be aggregated to produce ranks for each dimension, as well as an overall rank. This aggregation provides information about regional sustainability at a number of different levels appropriate to a range of audiences, from regional managers and professionals to the wider community. 3.2. Testing and validating SHCC The regional sustainability assessment framework was tested based upon data describing South East Queensland (SEQ). SEQ was chosen because its diverse characteristics make it a reasonable and practical representative region. It is ecologically and demographically diverse, with a growing population spread through metropolitan, rural farm and non-farm communities, with a combination of coastal, land and water management issues. SHCC was applied to SEQ with its performance evaluated using an evaluation criteria matrix (previously used to assess the effectiveness of current sustainability assessment methods (Graymore et al., 2008)). The evaluation criteria matrix (Table 2) was developed from the literature and was applied by assessing each criterion. This gave an indication of how well the method met the criteria, and thus, its effectiveness for assessing regional sustainability and usefulness for regional managers and the community. 3.3. Case study area: South East Queensland, Australia To demonstrate the representative nature of SEQ and thus, the applicability of the results of this evaluation to other regions in the world, a brief description of the region is provided. SEQ is located in the south-east corner of Queensland, Australia, and has 18 local governments (at the time of assessment) including Brisbane, the

M.L.M. Graymore et al. / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 459468 Table 1 The indicators and sustainability ranks for SHCC (for more information on indicator rank development see Graymore, 2005). Dimension Population Equity Indicator Population growth Visitor nights Poorest 20% income to richest 20% income Highest level of school completed% males to females completed Year 12 Land clearing rate Percent of total runoff in dams Percent of land area protected from restructuring Percent of ecosystems endangered or of concern Percent of land modied (agriculture, urban, forestry, industrial, commercial and service provision) Percent of remnant remaining Catch per unit effort (CPUE) as percent of lowest level in 19861994 Timber fellings as a percent of mean annual increment (MAI) (m3/ha) Water consumption per capita Soil erosion: sediment supply to waterways CO2 emissions CO2 emissions: Energy use per person CO2 emissions: Number of vehicles registered per 1000 people Sewage: percent wastewater treated to tertiary level Sewage: amount of efuent reused Solid waste: amount of solid waste produced per person Solid waste: percent of waste recycled Waste in water: total nitrogen in inland water Waste in water: total nitrogen in coastal water Waste in water: total phosphorous in inland water Waste in water: total phosphorous in coastal water Waste in water: total suspended solids in inland water Waste in water: total suspended solids in coastal water Waste in water: faecal coliforms in inland water Waste in water: faecal coliforms in coastal water Waste in air: annual mean ambient air concentration of sulfur dioxide Waste in air: annual mean ambient air concentration of carbon monoxide Waste in air: annual mean ambient air concentration of nitrogen dioxide Waste in air: annual mean ambient air concentration of suspended particulate matter Waste in air: annual mean ambient air concentration of ne particulates 10 micrometers or less in diameter (PM10) Waste in air: days ambient air visibility-reducing particles exceeds guidelines Major pressure 4) Introduced species Percent of assessed introduced pest species found in area Area of exotic plantation forest Percent of species listed as endangered or of concern Units % % of population Ratio Ratio Sustainability rank 1 1.4 or 1.4 20 1:33 9:1 Sustainability rank 2 0.33 or 0.33 10 1:17 5:1 Sustainability rank 3 0.033 or 0.033 5 1:5 3:1 Sustainability rank 4 0 2 1:3 1.5:1 Ref. b, e b a a

463

Major pressure 1) Physical restructuring

% total area % % % %

0.66 100 0 50 100

0.33 60 10 30 80

0.1 20 30 10 40

0 10 50 5 20

b a c c a

% % reference point % L/cap/yr t/ha/yr kg C/cap kWh/cap/yr Number per 1000 people % % kg/cap % mg/L mg/L mg/L mg/L mg/L mg/L Number of coliforms per 100 mL Number of coliforms per 100 mL g/m3 g/m
3

10 50 200 1,000,000 50 6,400 24,000 1000 0 0 2000 0 20.00 10.00 5.00 1.000 2000 1000 10,000 10,000 400 9200 320 720 400

20 70 130 500,000 5 3,200 12,000 800 35 15 750 5 2.00 1.20 1.00 0.120 1000 270 1000 1000 200 4600 160 360 200

50 100 100 200,000 0.5 800 3,000 540 80 30 400 25 0.50 0.30 0.05 0.030 25 30 30 30 50 2300 40 90 50

80 110 80 75,000 0.25 400 1,500 270 90 60 200 50 0.25 0.12 0.01 0.025 5 10 10 10 25 1150 20 45 25

a d a e, f, g, h i a a b b b b j a, a, a, a, a,

Major pressure 2) Overharvesting

Major pressure 3) Waste residuals

k k k k k

a, k a, k a, k a, l, m a, l, m a, l, m a, l, m a, l, m

g/m3 g/m3 g/m3

Days

224

112

28

14

a, l, m

% % of plantation area %

75 80 32

50 45 16

10 15 4

2 5 2

b b a

Ref: a Prescott-Allen (2001);b Graymore (2005); c McAlpine et al. (2002); d BRS (2003); e Cohen (1995); f ACTEW (2009); g DSE (2009) ; h QWC (2008) i Saskatchewan (2004); j Newton, et al. (2001); k ANZECC and ARMCANZ (2000); l WHO (1998); m Neale (2004).

state's capital city and the tourist areas of the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast (Fig. 3). In 2001, SEQ was home to 2.46 million people and is predicted to increase by a further one million over the next 20 years (PIFU, 2003). The region spreads out from Brisbane into suburban communities, as well as rural farm and non-farm communities. Approximately 80% of the population is located in coastal areas which

impacts coastal ecosystems. The area's rapid population growth and urban to rural migration is resulting in land use conicts, particularly between urban and agriculture users (Rickson et al., 1990; Low Choy et al., 2007). SEQ is one of the most biodiverse areas in Australia. This is due to the overlap of tropical and temperate climates, known as the Macleay-

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M.L.M. Graymore et al. / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 459468 Table 2 The evaluation criteria matrix SHCC (developed in Graymore et al., 2008). The scores are 1 = meets criteria, 2 = partially meets criteria, 3 = does not meet criteria and n/a is not applicable. Evaluation criteria A. Overall effectiveness of sustainability assessment at regional scale 1. Assesses regional sustainability Equity intergenerational and intragenerational Level of human activity Level of pressure on supporting systems Status of supporting systems Ecosystem Social Economic 2. Data availability and accessibility Uses existing data Data is locatable and accessible Data describes the region Data collection is cost effective (money and time) Ability to assess sustainability without all data 3. Assessment is easy to use No complicated calculations No specialist knowledge required (e.g. matrices) No specialist software required Easy to follow method Easy to use Small indicator set (i.e. manageable data set <40 indicators) Not time intensive (i.e. less than 3 months to complete) B. Method 4. Assesses sustainability directly Produces an overall sustainability score/index through aggregation of indicator data Aggregation method is logical Objective assessment of sustainability Integrated assessment including relationships between indicators 5. Information not lost during aggregation of data Indicator performance is reported Sub-system/dimension performance is reported Overall system sustainability is reported 6. Transparency in method used to produce results Method was clear and well documented Easy to understand how nal results were derived from indicator data Simplications and assumptions kept to minimum to reduce impact on results C. Usefulness of results 7. Simplies complexity of sustainability and facilitates communication to a range of audiences Easy to understand and interpret what results mean for regional sustainability Result can be described in a single page report card Able to visually represent the results Sustainability reported at a range of levels Detailed indicator performance Sub-system/dimension performance Overall system sustainability 8. Usefulness of the sustainability assessment results Time and data efciency of assessment For regional managers Sustainability reported at a range of levels Relates to policy, strategic planning, decision-making Points out where management actions are needed Targets or thresholds to measure against Can be used to assess trends overtime For community capacity building, social learning Result easy to understand Simple to use Data accessible Demonstrates links between sustainability and community activity SHCC 1 1 1 1 1 n/a

McPherson Overlap, which has created a unique combination of climate, landform and soil (Sattler and Williams, 1999). As a consequence, SEQ has many endemic species and many species at the limit of their range (Catterall and Kingston, 1993; Regional Nature Conservation Advisory Group, 2001). While the region is a biodiversity hotspot, it's biodiversity is at risk due to the high levels of population growth and land clearing. The region's ecosystems are also at risk from high levels of soil erosion and sediment loads in waterways, loss of habitat and the declining health of inland waterways and bays, particularly Moreton Bay, which is adjacent to the Brisbane urban area. Furthermore, there are problems with acid sulfate soils and toxic algal blooms occurring in Moreton Bay and its estuaries, which are thought to be linked, demonstrating the integration of land and water processes (Dennison and Abal, 1999). Finally, there are a number of social issues related to rapid population growth such as housing affordability, trafc congestion, insufcient public infrastructure, inadequate service levels and severe water shortages. 4. Results 4.1. The Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity framework (SHCC) By assessing naturesociety interactions that impact regional sustainability, particularly the pressure placed on the system by human activities, the SHCC can gauge whether a region has exceeded the carrying capacity of its supporting systems. It does this by comparing human activities to sustainable thresholds or targets. Thus the assessment shows which human activities are placing unsustainable levels of pressure on a region's carrying capacity and highlights areas where changes in policy and behaviour are required. The SHCC was developed as a spreadsheet template complete with factors needed to convert indicator data to the same units as the sustainability ranking scale. This combined with, the small set of indicators (no more than 39) and simple calculations make this method easy to use. The rst step in the assessment is to characterise the region being evaluated, including the assessment year, the region's boundaries, population size, ecosystem types and major human activities. This information is needed to determine which indicators should be used, since some indicators are specic to particular human activities and ecosystems. It can also be used for comparative analysis of a region over time, or between regions. The main body of the SHCC uses a small set of indicators that evaluate the pressures placed on a region's carrying capacity against sustainable thresholds. These are grouped into the dimensions population, equity and the four major pressures. To assess regional sustainability, each indicator's data is standardised using the fourpoint scale (Table 1). The indicator data is compared to the scale and assigned a rank based on the pressure being placed on the region's supporting systems of (1) unsustainable, (2) approaching unsustainable, (3) approaching sustainable or (4) sustainable. When assigned a rank 0 to 3, the pressure is assumed to be impacting on the region's carrying capacity. To determine an overall sustainability rank for a region, the sustainability ranks for the indicators are aggregated to the dimension and system level as averages, weighted averages or the lowest rank of a set of indicators, dependent on the relative impact of the indicator on sustainability. The indicators comprising the assessment are described below. 4.2. Population Population size, along with the rate of growth, measures the pressure that population growth (or decline) has upon a region's sustainability. The target for sustainability is a stable population within the human

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

carrying capacity of the region, since high population growth is not sustainable. Long-term population decline is also not desirable for the sustainability or resilience of the social system. However, in some areas a period of population decline is necessary to reach a sustainable population. This is reected in the sustainable rank scale.

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Fig. 3. The location of South East Queensland with the 18 local government areas at the time of assessment (from Graymore et al., 2008).

Tourism is included in the population dimension because tourists add to the pressure by increasing the amount of consumption and waste production and increasing the pressure on infrastructure, high amenity sites and services. This indicator uses the number of visitor nights to measure the number of people that visit the region in a year. For this assessment, these data were reported as a factor of the population. For example, in an area with a population of 20,000 and 100,000 visitor nights, the tourism indicator would be reported as ve which is 100,000 divided by 20,000. The sustainability rank for the population dimension is the lowest ranking of the two indicators. This ensures a low ranking of one indicator is not overshadowed by a high ranking of the other, as both are important to the level of pressure placed on supporting systems and have the potential to cause an increase in pressure. 4.3. Equity Education and income are used as indicators of equity, which is considered on both an intragenerational and intergenerational basis. To assess intragenerational equity, the lowest 20% of a region's average income is compared to the highest 20%. Equity in income indicates equity in access to basic necessities, including food, water and shelter, and a reasonable standard of living. For the education indicator, the highest level of school completed across selected categories is used. An example is the percent of males compared to the percent of females completing Year 12. Equity in education refers to equal opportunity, in this case, the comparative opportunities of males and females to complete secondary school. The sustainability rank for this dimension is the average of the two indicator ranks, as they both impact on intragenerational equity. While, intergenerational equity is assessed by the major pressure indicators, as the level of pressure on a region's systems indicates the region's ability to support future generations. 4.4. Major pressure: physical restructuring The remaining indicators included in the SHCC assess the pressure human activities are placing on a region's supporting systems. The

sustainability of the physical restructuring pressure is determined using six landscape and waterway modication indicators: 1) the land clearing rate; 2) the percent of total runoff in dams; 3) the percent of land area protected from direct modication (i.e. national parks, reservations and other protected areas); 4) the percent of ecosystems listed as endangered or of concern; 5) the land area converted from natural systems to human inuenced systems, including land used for agriculture, forestry, urban, industrial, commerce and service provision; and 6) amount of remnant vegetation. The sustainability rank for the physical restructuring dimension is the average of these six indicators.

4.5. Major pressure: overharvesting Four indicators are used to assess the overharvesting dimension. This dimension examines the level of pressure from harvesting natural resources, such as sheries, timber, water and soil. The human activity that causes overharvesting is consumption, but consumption gures are not typically available at the regional scale. Furthermore, a region's consumption may not be driving the overharvesting pressure, as many of these resources are exported out of the region. Therefore, the indicators are based on the activities occurring in a region that result in overharvesting. Two of the indicators, sheries and forestry, are only used if the activity is occurring in the area. For sheries, the indicator is catch per unit effort (CPUE) as a percent of a reference point for the shery (BRS, 2003), which measures the amount of effort required to catch sh. For timber harvesting the indicator is timber fellings as a percent of the mean annual increment (MAI), an estimate of the growth productivity of the trees. The third indicator is water consumption per capita. It is included because water consumption can lead to overharvesting pressure if too much water is removed from the ecosystem or aquifer it can reduce habitat availability, change seasonal ow rates, and cause drying of waterways and land depression, all reducing system resilience. The sustainability ranking for water consumption was based on average water use and water use targets in areas under drought. The fourth indicator is soil erosion and is measured as sediment supply to rivers. Soil is an extremely important resource for human

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survival that can be threatened by overharvesting pressure through land uses including agriculture, urbanisation, industry and mining. The sustainability rank for the overharvesting dimension is the average of the indicators applicable to the area. 4.6. Major pressure: waste residuals This dimension is based on the presence of waste residuals in the environment. There is little accessible data describing the amount of wastes being discharged into the environment. However, human activities that contribute to waste residuals were included where data were available. Overall, there were 20 indicators used for this dimension grouped into ve categories: carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, sewage, solid waste, waste in the water, and waste in the air. The CO2 emissions indicator measures a region's contribution to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However, if there are no data for CO2 emissions, then two indicators are used as proxies: energy use per person and the number of registered vehicles (passenger vehicles and motorcycles). Both of these can be used to approximate the level of fossil fuel use, the major contributor to CO2 emissions. Sewage production is assessed using two indicators: the percent of wastewater treated to a tertiary level and the amount of wastewater efuent reused. The sewage sustainability rank is the average of these two indicators. Solid waste is assessed using two indicators: solid waste produced and the percent recycled, both of which place pressure on the environment, landll and recycling facilities. The sustainability rank for solid waste is the average of these two indicators. The remaining indicators for the waste residual dimension assess the levels of waste in water and air. For water, the indicators used are total nitrogen (N), total phosphorus (P), total suspended solids (TSS) and faecal coliforms in inland and coastal waters (if applicable). The waste in water rank is the average of the lowest ranks for the coastal and inland water indicators. Air pollution is assessed using the annual mean ambient air concentration of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, suspended particulate matter and ne particulates 10 m or less in diameter (PM10), as well as the number of days that the visual amenity indicator, visibility, exceeds local guidelines. The sustainability rank for waste in air is the lowest ranked indicator. For the waste residual dimension, the sustainability rank is the average of the ve waste streamsCO2 emissions, sewage, solid waste, waste in water and waste in air. 4.7. Major pressure: introduced species The introduction of exotic species dimension is difcult to assess due to the lack of data for suitable indicators. Therefore, only three indicators are used for this dimension: 1) percent of introduced pest species; 2) area of exotic plantation forests as a percent of plantation area; and 3) percent of species listed as endangered or of concern. The sustainability rank of the introduced species dimension is the average of applicable indicators. 4.8. Overall ranking The pressure being placed on a region's supporting systems by human activities is evaluated by the major pressure sustainability rank. This is determined as the average of the four major pressure dimensions, as each pressure dimension has the potential to cause loss of biodiversity and ecosystems by impacting on ecosystem resilience, health and functioning. The overall sustainability of a region is the weighted average of the ranks for each dimension. Each dimension is assigned a multiplier, which is dependent on its affect on the overall sustainability. The multiplier for equity

and population is one because equity is a modier of sustainability (Prescott-Allen, 2001) and population is only an indicator of the change in pressure, and not the actual pressure. The major pressure dimensions are assigned a multiplier of two since the pressure they exert on ecosystems is similar. The sustainability ranks can then be used to make conclusions about the region's sustainability from the level of pressure on its carrying capacity. That is, if the sustainability rank is low, the level of pressure is high and potentially exceeding the carrying capacity; thus the region's human activity is unsustainable. If the rank is four, then the level of pressure is low and within the carrying capacity, so the region is considered sustainable. Because the assessment shows the sustainability of each indicator, along with overall system sustainability, regional managers can use the results to make recommendations for policy and management to help progress regional sustainability. 4.9. Testing and evaluating Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity SHCC was eld tested in SEQ where it was found to be an effective method for assessing regional sustainability (Table 2). It was easy to use, with regional scale data available for each of the indicators. SHCC was able to provide information about the sustainability of the pressures being placed on a region's supporting systems. The information produced is useful for informing decision-making to progress sustainability. It is able to highlight areas where the pressures exerted by human activities are having a detrimental effect on the region's supporting systems and potentially impacting on system resilience, state and function. This is critical for sustainability, as regional sustainability relies on the resilience, state and function of its ecosystems to provide essential goods and services to support the population. Therefore, the ndings suggest that SHCC is a valid means of assessing regional sustainability and can be applied to regions in Australia and beyond. However, its applicability across other regions and countries depends, of course, on data availability. The evaluation criteria matrix in Table 2 shows SHCC to be a reasonably effective and useful method of assessing regional sustainability. It meets six of the eight criteria. The only criterion the method only partially met was assesses sustainability directly. This was due to lack of quantitative information about the interactions between the indicators, their impact on sustainability and the sustainability thresholds of the indicators resulting in some subjectivity in the aggregation method used. However, much of this subjectivity could be removed as new information becomes available or by using multiple criteria analysis with an investigation into the relationships between indicators. SHCC assesses all the important aspects of sustainability identied by the regional sustainability model. By evaluating the major pressures human activities place on the ecosystem, it is able to provide information about the sustainability of the social and ecological systems by indicating how sustainable these pressures are against known sustainability thresholds. Thus, an assessment of the level of pressure being placed on the region by human activity, along with information on equity, can provide an indication of overall sustainability. In this way, SHCC provides regional managers with information about a region's sustainability that can help guide decision-making. 5. Discussion Our paper introduced, tested and evaluated SHCC, a new regional sustainability assessment method based on sustaining the regional human carrying capacity. By using the four major pressure categories (Rapport et al., 1998), as well as population and equity dimensions, SHCC is able to assess sustainability by evaluating the sustainability of the pressures that human activities place on a region's systems.

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Thus SHCC provides information about the sustainability of a region to managers to help produce well-informed strategic planning and natural resource management to progress sustainability. Furthermore, if SHCC is used periodically, it can provide information for sustainability monitoring and evaluation in an adaptive management framework. Basing SHCC on the regional sustainability theory developed by Graymore (2005) gives the method a solid framework for sustainability assessment. In fact, it is this type of integration of theory into the practice of measuring sustainability that is needed to establish credibility and legitimacy (Parris and Kates, 2003). Our paper argues, based upon research, that an effective sustainability assessment framework can be built by integrating sustainability theory, which identies critical aspects of regional sustainability, with the characteristics of an effective sustainability assessment method. This integration of theory into an assessment framework gives credibility and legitimacy to SHCC as an effective regional sustainability assessment. It also suggests that this approach to the development of future sustainability assessment frameworks should be adopted. SHCC is a practical tool for regional planning and natural resource management. It is useful for informing planning and management decisions across time and space as it is adaptable, given appropriate skill levels of personnel and the availability of data, to regions anywhere. Also, the addition of sustainability ranking scales based on sustainability thresholds, targets and expert opinion for each of the indicators gives managers quantiable targets to work toward enabling them to monitor progress toward sustainability or, alternatively, failure to meet sustainability goals. Furthermore, the ability to get information on individual indicators allows managers to see where intervention is required to reduce the impact of human activities and progress sustainability. Thus, SHCC has the potential to be useful for monitoring and evaluating strategic planning for sustainability. The ability of SHCC to show the links between human activity and regional sustainability make it useful for raising community awareness about sustainability. It can be used for social learning about sustainability, by highlighting areas where human activity is unsustainable and changes in human activity are necessary for sustainability. In this way, SHCC can raise community awareness and understanding about sustainability to help get the community involved in the transition to sustainability through behaviour change and participation in decision-making. SHCC was found to be more suited to regional sustainability assessment than the methods tested in our rst paper (see Graymore et al., 2008). The small set of indicators used offer an effective assessment of sustainability that are neither time nor data intensive, making SHCC more useful to a wide variety of regions compared to more complex models. The aggregation method developed here ensures there is transparency in the results, unlike, for example, the ecological footprint. It can also report information at a number of levels appropriate to different audiences, which gives it a signicant advantage over the ecosystem health or quality of life models. SHCC effectively illustrates linkages between community activity and sustainability. Furthermore, its measure of pressure on ecosystems is more easily applicable to planning and evaluation than that which is provided by other methods. Therefore it satises the criteria imposed in the sustainability assessment methods evaluation. In addition, it provides strategic information for regional managers for progressing sustainability and it has the potential to raise community awareness because educated citizens can easily understand SHCC. Thus, we argue that SHCC, more than other methods currently used to assess sustainability, satises a primary criterion of useful knowledge, simple yet profound in its implications. There are some limitations to SHCC. Data limitations at the regional scale mean that SHCC cannot cover all major pressures (e.g., direct release of wastes into the environment from industry) or all

aspects of equity (e.g., health service access). However, with currently available data, the method is able to give an indication of the sustainability of a region, and as new data becomes available for other indicators these could be added to the framework. The applicability of SHCC to other regions also needs further testing to ensure that data are available for the indicators and the sustainability scales are applicable. However, it would be possible to adapt SHCC to a specic region by local management agencies working with the community to review and develop, if necessary, appropriate indicators and sustainability ranking scales specic to their region. Thus, its primary limitations are: (1) data availability; and (2) the presence of skilled and committed personnel. However, a stakeholder evaluation of SHCC may uncover other limitations not identied by the researchers to allow further development and ensure it is useful to all stakeholders. The sustainability ranking scales developed for the assessment have been developed using the best available science. However, this may not be a true reection of the actual sustainability thresholds of the indicators. Thus, further work on sustainability thresholds is needed to rene this method and give managers more accurate targets for strategic planning. However, until a better understanding of sustainability thresholds is developed, SHCC is able to provide a basis for regional sustainability assessment that can be rened as new knowledge about sustainability thresholds and regional sustainability unfolds. 6. Conclusion This paper developed a regional sustainability assessment method based on a regional sustainability model (Graymore, 2005; Graymore et al., 2008). The framework, SHCC, proved to be a valid and effective method for regional sustainability assessment. The method was easy to use with easily accessible data and no complicated calculations. The results of the assessment can provide useful information about regional sustainability, including the level of intragenerational equity, population and the pressure human activities are placing on a region's carrying capacity. The evaluation of the method showed that SHCC met most of the criteria for an effective sustainability assessment method. It was able to produce information about regional sustainability that is easily understood and useful for managers to produce well-informed strategic planning and natural resource management to progress sustainability. It has potential as a tool for raising community awareness about sustainability and the link between human activity and regional sustainability. Thus, we attempt to ll a gap in sustainability science by providing an effective tool for regional sustainability. Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the support from the Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal, Estuarine, and Waterway Management and the Grifth School of Environment in terms of funding for this research. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviews for their valuable feedback. References
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