Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations

As the most populous continent, and its dominant role in the global economy, Asia is arguably the most important region for understanding global change. To evaluate and guide humanity’s growth toward a more sustainable future, indicators and their composite indices have been adopted as key tools res...

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Autores principales:	Richard Ross Shaker, Brian R. Mackay
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Elsevier 2021
Materias:	Development Index Population growth Sustainability assessment Sustainability indicators Urbanization Ecology QH540-549.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/335ba2ef544b47d7b510291ab82d47c6
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:335ba2ef544b47d7b510291ab82d47c62021-12-01T05:00:54ZHidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations1470-160X10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108227https://doaj.org/article/335ba2ef544b47d7b510291ab82d47c62021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X2100892Xhttps://doaj.org/toc/1470-160XAs the most populous continent, and its dominant role in the global economy, Asia is arguably the most important region for understanding global change. To evaluate and guide humanity’s growth toward a more sustainable future, indicators and their composite indices have been adopted as key tools resulting in a paralyzing amount for decision-makers, practitioners, and researchers to choose from. Although research has improved understanding of development metrics for evaluating and monitoring global change, making progress toward sustainability remains as open as ever. Building from previous work, 44 Asian nations were studied using four guiding research questions: (i) What are the hidden dimensions within a collection of known sustainable development indices, and what differentiates winning locations from losing ones? (ii) Are the three major divisions of sustainability (economic growth, social equity, environmental integrity) equally supported by these development measuring initiatives? (iii) How do common global change indicators statistically respond to the canonical development dimensions? (iv) Do recent population growth and urbanization trends move humanity closer to planetary sustainability? Those questions were explored using four amassing methodological stages. First, six hidden development dimensions (factor axes) were revealed while maintaining over 80% of 35 known sustainable development indices’ variation. The dimensions expressed: (F1) human well-being synergies; (F2) environmentally efficient happiness; (F3) ecological integrity to economic performance trade-off; (F4) peace, prosperity, and natural resources protection; (F5) economic and political liberty; and (F6) generosity. Second, a mega-index of sustainable development (MISD) was created by combining the six latent dimensions. Third, spatial patterns of the hidden development axes, MISD, and nine common global change metrics were explored. Fourth, using global and local inferential tests, associations between the canonical development dimensions, MISD, and global change indicators were made. The human well-being synergies dimension (F1) explained over one-third of the total variance, and positively clustered in northern Asia and negatively in southern Asia. The MISD ranked Singapore best, followed by Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Malaysia; Afghanistan ranked worst, then China, Syria, Russia, Turkmenistan, and India. Overall, improved sustainable development position came through increased population density, decreased country area, lower latitude, and a greater proportion of urban land cover. This cross-country analysis reiterates an underrepresentation of biogeochemical (ecosphere) conditions across development indices; moreover, spatial patterns of favorable development were rarely found simultaneous. Trade-offs and the lack of spatial concordance will make achieving sustainability a very difficult task in an urbanizing world without limits.Richard Ross ShakerBrian R. MackayElsevierarticleDevelopmentIndexPopulation growthSustainability assessmentSustainability indicatorsUrbanizationEcologyQH540-549.5ENEcological Indicators, Vol 131, Iss , Pp 108227- (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Development Index Population growth Sustainability assessment Sustainability indicators Urbanization Ecology QH540-549.5
spellingShingle	Development Index Population growth Sustainability assessment Sustainability indicators Urbanization Ecology QH540-549.5 Richard Ross Shaker Brian R. Mackay Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations
description	As the most populous continent, and its dominant role in the global economy, Asia is arguably the most important region for understanding global change. To evaluate and guide humanity’s growth toward a more sustainable future, indicators and their composite indices have been adopted as key tools resulting in a paralyzing amount for decision-makers, practitioners, and researchers to choose from. Although research has improved understanding of development metrics for evaluating and monitoring global change, making progress toward sustainability remains as open as ever. Building from previous work, 44 Asian nations were studied using four guiding research questions: (i) What are the hidden dimensions within a collection of known sustainable development indices, and what differentiates winning locations from losing ones? (ii) Are the three major divisions of sustainability (economic growth, social equity, environmental integrity) equally supported by these development measuring initiatives? (iii) How do common global change indicators statistically respond to the canonical development dimensions? (iv) Do recent population growth and urbanization trends move humanity closer to planetary sustainability? Those questions were explored using four amassing methodological stages. First, six hidden development dimensions (factor axes) were revealed while maintaining over 80% of 35 known sustainable development indices’ variation. The dimensions expressed: (F1) human well-being synergies; (F2) environmentally efficient happiness; (F3) ecological integrity to economic performance trade-off; (F4) peace, prosperity, and natural resources protection; (F5) economic and political liberty; and (F6) generosity. Second, a mega-index of sustainable development (MISD) was created by combining the six latent dimensions. Third, spatial patterns of the hidden development axes, MISD, and nine common global change metrics were explored. Fourth, using global and local inferential tests, associations between the canonical development dimensions, MISD, and global change indicators were made. The human well-being synergies dimension (F1) explained over one-third of the total variance, and positively clustered in northern Asia and negatively in southern Asia. The MISD ranked Singapore best, followed by Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Malaysia; Afghanistan ranked worst, then China, Syria, Russia, Turkmenistan, and India. Overall, improved sustainable development position came through increased population density, decreased country area, lower latitude, and a greater proportion of urban land cover. This cross-country analysis reiterates an underrepresentation of biogeochemical (ecosphere) conditions across development indices; moreover, spatial patterns of favorable development were rarely found simultaneous. Trade-offs and the lack of spatial concordance will make achieving sustainability a very difficult task in an urbanizing world without limits.
format	article
author	Richard Ross Shaker Brian R. Mackay
author_facet	Richard Ross Shaker Brian R. Mackay
author_sort	Richard Ross Shaker
title	Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations
title_short	Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations
title_full	Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations
title_fullStr	Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations
title_full_unstemmed	Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations
title_sort	hidden patterns of sustainable development in asia with underlying global change correlations
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/335ba2ef544b47d7b510291ab82d47c6
work_keys_str_mv	AT richardrossshaker hiddenpatternsofsustainabledevelopmentinasiawithunderlyingglobalchangecorrelations AT brianrmackay hiddenpatternsofsustainabledevelopmentinasiawithunderlyingglobalchangecorrelations
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Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations

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