The study investigates whether the present pattern of urban development in India in the creation of mega cities is sustainable and what it can learn from the global megacities. This has been done by comparing the two Indian cities Mumbai and Bangalore with selected mega cities of the worlds representing different stages of development (Shanghai, London, and Singapore) using an indicator-based a...

In September 2015, heads of state gathered at the UN general Assembly to adopt a new global development agenda, commonly referred to as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Earlier in July 2015, Ministers of finance had met to agree on the means for financing this new development agenda which replaces the Millennium Development Goals that reflected the development priorities between 2000 a...

Macroeconomic sustainability indicators are often applied at the national level. This national-level focus is problematic given the importance of trade in the global economy. This article uses one measure of economic weak sustainability, Genuine Savings, to highlight three issues: (a) the national-level measure is empirically unsound because it does not provide a reliable indicator of weak sust...

On 16 March 2014, the State Council of China launched its first urbanization planning initiative dubbed “National New Urbanization Planning (2014–2020)” (NNUP). NNUP put forward 20 urban agglomerations and a sustainable development approach aiming to transform traditional Chinese urbanization to sustainable new urbanization. This study quantitatively evaluates the level of sustainability of the...

The oceans are a crucial source of natural resources for human development, as productive terrestrial resources increasingly reach their limits of economic and ecological exploitation. With increasing human impact on oceans, it is vital to maintain a sustainable human–ocean relationship. We present an indicator system and information entropy model to assess the evolution of human–ocean systems ...

To facilitate sustainable agricultural development, this study developed a model of rice farming sustainability in Bangladesh and determined the key interventions for policy implementation. Data for the study were collected through a household survey and also via in-depth informal discussion with stakeholders. By constructing a composite indicator, path analysis results showed that major contri...

Simulation and empirical analyses were conducted to evaluate the utility and robustness of average length (Lbar) of animals in the exploited population as an estimator of fishing mortality (F), and therefore as an indicator of exploitation status for Florida coral-reef fish. Simulation results showed that the Lbar estimator of fishing mortality was relatively insensitive to trends in recruitmen...

Sustainably managing ecosystems is challenging, especially for complex systems such as coral reefs. This study develops critical reference points for sustainable management by using a large empirical dataset on the coral reefs of the western Indian Ocean to investigate associations between levels of target fish biomass (as an indicator of fishing intensity) and eight metrics of ecosystem state....

Urbanization is one of the great challenges of our time and unchecked haphazard urbanization is a serious threat both to the environment and social and economic balance. In order to meet global sustainability targets, rapid urban growth must be channelled into environmentally friendly, sustainable and liveable urban environments. Thus, this special issue focuses on sustainable urban design whic...

This work was aimed at evaluating the contribution of intensive rabbit breeding to sustainable development using a semi-quantitative method. Nine sustainability indicators were defi ned for the environmental (energy use, antibiotic use, and biodiversity), economic (profi t, specialisation rate, and transmissibility) and social scales of sustainable development. A score (−1, 0 or +1) was given f...