Regional Opportunities for Sustainable Development Theory, Methods, and Applications

By their adoption of Agenda 21, most of the world's governments have acknowledged the need for sustainable development. This implies that new policies are needed, focusing on economic, social, cultural and ecological goals. At the same time, we also need to solve existing environmental and social problems, and prevent the occurrence of new ones. This volume presents, tests and illustrates a theoretically well-founded procedure for discovering regional opportunities for sustainable development, based on a systems approach to decision making. The procedure takes as its starting point the needs of the people involved, relating these to the measurement of available resources in order to find opportunities for multiple resource use and sustainable development. The needs of future generations and broader communities are taken into account throughout.
The book studies regional planning and the implementation of plans, offering guidance and support to parties involved in debates on sustainable development, and improving the quality of their decision making.

I Introduction and Survey.- One Theory.- II Sustainable Development: Looking for New Strategies.- III Defining Socio-Environmental Systems for Sustainable Development.- IV A Framework for Identifying the Valuable Characteristics of a Socio-Environmental System.- V Measuring the Resource State of a Socio-Environmental System.- VI Procedure for Sustainable Development: Decision Making Phases and Information Requirements.- Two In search of Improvements to the Proposed Methods and Procedures.- VII The Analysis of the Research Project ‘Integrated Agriculture in the Netherlands’.- VIII The Analysis of the Research Project ‘Reduction in Production in the Dutch Dairy Sector’.- IX A Simulation of The Selection of Valuable Characteristics of the Rijnmond Region of the Netherlands.- X A Simulation of the Measurement of the Resource State of a Dune and Bulb-growing Region in the Netherlands.- Three The Application of the Proposed Procedure within a Decision Making Process.- XI Introduction: Opportunities for Multiple Land-Use in Rural Areas.- XII The Exploration of the Potential to Combine Land-use Processes.- XIII Exploration of the Potential Regional Benefits of Multiple Land-use.- Four Summary, Perspectives, and References.- XIV Summary and Perspectives.- XV References.