تجزیه و تحلیل حساسیت شاخص های زیست محیطی کامپوزیت کره ای

The purpose of this paper is to carry out a sensitivity analysis of the Korean composite environmental index (CEI) by examining the CEIs computed by functional forms and those derived from opinion surveys, with a special emphasis on the assessment of weights of environmental indicators and themes: the CEIs are based on environmental themes and pressure indicators. The trends of CEIs had minor gaps according to survey types, survey years, and functional forms, but their effects on the CEI were not strong enough to alter the general trend, which is a clear deterioration of the environment. The Korean CEI has been deteriorating in proportion to economic growth. The annualized growth rate of real GDP and the annualized deterioration rate of environment for 1986–1997 were 7.8 and 5.6%, respectively, and a linear regression of CEI on real GDP over the same period showed a close, positive relation, specifically that a 1% growth of real GDP caused a 0.7% deterioration of the environment. The principal cause of the deteriorating environment is the priority given to economic growth over environmental preservation in the Korean drive for economic development.

One of the reasons that the demand for integrated environmental information has recently increased in many countries is because integrated information is essentially used in evaluating the performance of environmentally sustainable development. As it is very difficult to evaluate the environmental performance on the grounds of so many environmental indicators, we should reduce the number of indicators by aggregating them to a composite environmental index (CEI) to make this information accessible. CEIs are very valuable as a vehicle for providing environmental information in a clear and succinct manner. CEIs are especially very useful for environmental decision-making by policy makers and for maintaining well-informed public, although environmental experts may have several means for analyzing many indicators. Decision makers are much more likely to rely on integrated information such as the CEIs. Efforts to select basic data on environmental indicators and to integrate these indicators into a CEI have been ongoing since the 1970s, but because systematic and reasonable methodologies have not been clearly formulated, CEIs have not been widely used. Prior studies have defects such as a lack of basic environmental data, deficient information on environmental and public health effects of pollutants, arbitrary selection of weights assigned to environmental themes, and a lack of rationale in the use of the CEI function. Ott (1978) and Naito and Nishioka (1984) construct frameworks and theories for computing CEIs. Inhaber (1974), Hope and Parker (1980), Hope et al. (1992), NWF (1991), Parker (1991) and Hope and Parker (1995) compute CEIs, and Adriaanse (1993), Jesinghaus (1995a), Jesinghaus, 1995b and Jesinghaus, 1997 and Puolamaa et al. (1996) develop new frameworks for CEIs using an environmental theme approach.1US EPA (1997) arranges the literature on environmental indices. These studies show the methods used to weigh environmental indicators and functional forms in order to aggregate sub-indices into a CEI. But Inhaber (1974), NWF (1991), Parker (1991), Hope et al. (1992) and Hope and Parker (1995), determine the selection of basic data and the seriousness of pollution materials subjectively, based on the authors’ or a small number of experts’ opinions. Moreover, they do not follow an environmental theme approach but rather, an environmental media approach for computing a CEI.2 Conversely, Puolamaa et al. (1996) use the environmental theme approach, and select environmental indicators based on materials causing environmental themes. Further, by scaling the seriousness of pollutants according to their physical impact on the environment, they employ objectivity in selecting environmental indicators and weights. But they compute sub-environmental indices (SEI) rather than a CEI, and only suggest a method for computing CEIs. Kang (1997) and Kang et al. (1999) determine the weights of the seriousness among environmental indicators and the weights of environmental themes through an expert survey in order to overcome the limitations of Hope et al. (1992), Hope and Parker (1995) and Puolamaa et al. (1996). They compute a CEI using a weighted-sum form—one of increasing functions. But they depend solely on the expert survey for the weights of environmental themes, and compute the CEI with the weights based only on a one-time survey. The purpose of this paper is to carry out a sensitivity analysis of the Korean CEI by examining the CEIs that were computed by functional forms and those derived from opinion surveys, with a special emphasis on the assessment of weights of environmental indicators and themes: the CEIs are based on environmental themes and pressure indicators.

We carried out a sensitivity analysis of the Korean CEI by examining the CEIs that were computed by functional forms, and those derived from opinion surveys with a special emphasis on the assessment of weights of environmental indicators and themes. The trends of CEIs had minor gaps according to survey types, survey years, and functional forms, but their effects on the CEI were not strong enough to alter the general trend, which is a clear deterioration of the environment. The Korean CEI has been deteriorating in proportion to economic growth. The annualized growth rate of real GDP and the annualized deterioration rate of environment for 1986–1997 were 7.8 and 5.6%, respectively, and a linear regression of CEI on real GDP over the same period showed a close, positive relation, specifically that a 1% growth of real GDP caused a 0.7% deterioration of the environment. The main cause of this environmental deterioration is that Korea is still a developing country under active economic growth. Though the Korean government speaks of environmentally sound and sustainable development, it, in practice, appears to favor economic growth over environmental preservation. This was supported by comparing these weights of the Korean government and the Korean people for economic growth and environmental protection, which showed that the environment had a high enough weight, but this weight was ignored by the Korean government. As is well-known, the CEI is very helpful to narrow the differences of opinions about environmental pollution between governments and people. Further, this comprehensive measurement is needed to enforce the environmental component of governmental policies, and to complement the deficiencies of GDP in terms of environment. In order to develop and improve the CEI more in the future, the following endeavors should be undertaken. First, since composite environmental indices are intended to show comprehensive environment changes and evaluate policy performance, they should be increasingly used in environmental decision-making. Second, environmental indicators for the environmental state and the environmental response, as well as the environmental pressure, should be developed, and both ‘state’ CEI and ‘response’ CEI should be developed to provide more accurate environmental information.