A framework for regional sustainability assessment: developing indicators for a Portuguese region

摘要

Regional sustainability indicators are increasingly being developed. Their significance becomes obvious when important public policy-making strategies are decentralized to regions or local governments. This research designed a framework for the development of regional sustainability indicators. Its main goal is to assess and report regional sustainability performance, incorporating a significant public participation component. When the proposed approach was tested in the Algarve region, it was founduseful to engage a broad range of stakeholders in regional sustainability assessment. This case study is a practical example of how regional sustainability can be assessed as a dynamic participative process, involving multi-stakeholders, to obtain a regional profile.