Sustainability assessment of development scenarios: methodology and application to Thailand

This paper aims to offer an applicable evaluation framework for assessing s ustainable development strategies at the regional level, with a particular view on the treatment of uncertain information. After a survey of various r egional sustainable development studies, several methodological issues pert aining to regional sustainability are presented and discussed, which lay th e foundation for the central approach in this paper, viz. the use of critic al threshold values. Based on a multidimensional indicator system, a system atic multicriteria model is proposed by employing the recently developed an d user-friendly flag model. This model is able to take into consideration v arious relevant classes of (non) compliance with critical threshold values. By means of this model an empirical case study is undertaken for the Songk hla/Hat Yai area in southern Thailand. Three policy scenario's (decentraliz ation, sectoral and regional promotion and environmental protection) are sy stematically evaluated using a blend of the above-mentioned critical thresh old value and the flag approach. It is concluded that in general the decent ralization policy is slightly more preferable than the sectoral and regiona l development scenario and significantly more preferable than the environme ntal protection scenario for the region concerned. The analytical tools use d (a qualitative systems approach, the use of critical threshold values and the flag model) appeared to yield a satisfactory contribution to sustainab ility assessment, even in case of qualitative information. (C) 2000 Elsevie r Science B.V. All rights reserved.