Assessment of urban environmental sustainability in hue city as a case study - Tran Anh Tuan

Journal of Science and Technology 54 (2A) (2016) 195-200 ASSESSMENT OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN HUE CITY AS A CASE STUDY Tran Anh Tuan * , Le Thi Phuong Chi Department of Environmental Science, College of Sciences, Hue University, 77 Nguyen Hue Street, Hue City, Vietnam * Email: tuantrankhmt@gmail.com Received: 5 May 2016; Accepted for publication: 26 June 2016 ABSTRACT Hue city was chosen for a pilot application of indicators on environmentally sustainable city, which were developed by Vietnam Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The indicator set is composed of four key categories (water, air, solid waste and climate change response), which are broken down into 16 underlying performance indicators. In reality, there has not been any assessment process in place to guide cities in Vietnam in doing their own assessment. In this research, an assessment process including 5 steps was built up; and a barometer with 5 classification bands ranging from 0 to 100 was recommended to use for both category and overall assessment. The weighting of 4 urban environmental categories was undertaken based upon a Delphi method with informed inputs from an expert panel. The 5 - step analysis process showed that Hue city was ranked “medium” with the score between 41 - 60 for water and solid waste, “fairly good” in terms of air (score of 85) and “poor” as to climate change response (score of 40). The sum of all category scores of Hue city, which is also rebased to 100, is valued at 60. Thus, the city was ranked “fairly good” in the overall. Such assessment results are much expected to provide assistance in decision-making at various levels of local authority and help them set forth some appropriate improvement measures on urban environmental sustainability issues. As such, the city would soon meet some concerned requirements to become a leading city of Vietnam in urban environmental sustainability. Keywords: environmental sustainability, indicators, Hue city, urban environment. 1. INTRODUCTION With an aim of balancing between environmental aspects and socio-economic development of urban areas, and keeping pace with the common trend in the world, Vietnam needs to develop its urban areas towards environmental sustainability. One of effective tools assisting such development is the establishment of indicators on environmentally sustainable city. This tool would briefly point out both high environmental performances and environmental constraints that a city faces and needs to be addressed [1]. At the regional level, a great deal of award programmes on environmentally sustainable city has been developed for its nations; namely European Green Capital, Asian Green Cities, Tran Anh Tuan, Le Thi Phuong Chi 196 African Green Cities, ASEAN Environmentally Sustainable Cities, etc [2]. At the national level, there have also existed numerous awards, such as Environmentally Sustainable Cities in Malaysia, Clean Cities in Indonesia, Clean and Green in Philippines, Worth-living Cities in Thailand, and so on [3]. In Vietnam, the indicator set on environmentally sustainable city was developed in 2014 by Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE). It has 16 underlying indicators grouped into 4 categories of water, air, solid waste and climate change response. At present, a draft on process, registration procedures, verification and award approval of environmentally sustainable cities is being drawn up by MONRE. However, there has not yet been any assessment process in place to guide and assist cities in their own assessment. As a relaxing and tranquil city, Hue is big enough to be fascinating, but also small enough to cycle around. It combines the charm of history, culture and fresh environment. In 2014, Hue was recognized by the ASEAN Environment Ministers as one of the ASEAN Environmentally Sustainable Cities in terms of clean air, clean soil and clean water. This award was established in 2008 by the ASEAN Working Group on Environmentally Sustainable Cities and endorsed by the ASEAN Environment Ministers. It recognizes exemplary initiatives keeping ASEAN cities environmentally conscious. Thus, this study regards Hue city as the first case in Vietnam to put in practice the use of indicator set developed by MONRE. It is much expected that the assessment results would be fully integrated into the regular processes of decision- making of local authority, so that Hue is capable of maintaining and developing towards the leading city of Vietnam on urban environmental sustainability. 2. METHODS There have so far existed various processes utilized for the assessment of sustainability as a whole and environmental sustainability in particular. This research developed a specific assessment process with 5 steps and proposed to use it for the full assessment of urban environmental sustainability in Vietnam. The whole detailed process is shown in Table 1. In order to fit in with five ranging bands built up based on IUCN Resource Kit for Sustainability Assessment, the total of both indicator and category weights should be equal to 1 or 100 % [4, 5]. Table 1. The detailed assessment process on urban environmental sustainability. Assessment process Indicator category Water (W) Air (A) Solid waste (S) Climate change (C) 1. Defining indicator value Iw1, Iw2, Iwn Ia1, Ia2, Ian Is1, Is2, Isn Ic1, Ic2, Icn 2. Calculating indicator weight (Cn) and category weight (CI) Cw1, Cw2, Cwn CW Ca1, Ca2, Can CA Cs1, Cs2, Csn CS Cc1, Cc2, Ccn CC 3. Calculating category score 4. Calculating overall score Assessing urban environmental sustainability by means of indicators: the case of Hue city 197 5. Ranging performance criteria by comparing the overall score with 5 bands shown below: Band Range on scale Top point on scale Definition Bad 0-20 20 Unacceptable performance Poor 21-40 40 Undesirable performance Medium 41-60 60 Neutral or transitional performance Fairly good 61-80 80 Acceptable performance, objective almost met Good 81-100 100 Desirable performance, objective fully met 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1. Determination of indicator value The data used for scoring 16 indicators were collected from local agencies and organizations such as Thua Thien Hue Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Thua Thien Hue Urban Work and Environment Joint Stock Company, Thua Thien Hue Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Monitoring, Hue Urban Management Division and other concerned organisations and institutions. The indicator value was then defined on the basis 4 barometers of the indicator set developed by MONRE. Table 2, 3, 4 and 5 indicate the calculation results of 16 underlying indicators on environmentally sustainable city. Table 2. Scores of indicators under water category. Indicators Performance level (%) Level of Hue (%) Score of Hue 1. Population getting access to clean water <50 50 <60 60 <70 70 <80 80 <90 90 99 100 2. Sewer system coverage <40 40 <50 50 <60 60 <70 70 <80 80 <40 0 3. Water loss 30 25 <30 20 <25 15 <20 10 <15 <10 12 80 4. Collected and treated domestic wastewater <10 10 <20 20 <40 40 <50 50 <60 60 60 100 5. Businesses having their wastewater legally treated 80 100 Score 0 20 40 60 80 100 Table 3. Scores of indicators under air category. Indicators Performance level Level of Hue Score of Hue 1. Frequency of ambient air quality monitoring (time/year) 0 1 <3 3 <6 6 <12 12 <24 24 4 Score 0 20 40 60 80 100 40 Tran Anh Tuan, Le Thi Phuong Chi 198 2. Annual average concentration of PM10 Not meeting QCVN 05:2015/BTNMT* Meeting QCVN 05:2015/BTNMT* Meeti ng 100 3. Annual average concentration of SO2 Not meeting QCVN 05:2015/BTNMT* Meeting QCVN 05:2015/BTNMT* Meeti ng 100 4. Annual average concentration of NO2 Not meeting QCVN 05:2015/BTNMT* Meeting QCVN 05:2015/BTNMT* Meeti ng 100 Score 0 100 * National Technical Regulations on Ambient Air Quality Table 4. Scores of indicators under solid waste category. Indicators Performance level (%) Level of Hue (%) Score of Hue 1. Collected and treated domestic solid waste <50 50 <60 60 <70 70 <80 80 <90 90 88 80 2. Legally collected and treated hazardous solid waste <50 50 <60 60 <70 70 <80 80 <90 90 90 100 3. Reuse, recycling, energy- recovery or composting of domestic solid waste <1 1 <5 5 <10 10 <15 15 <20 20 20 100 Scores 0 20 40 60 80 100 Table 5. Scores of indicators under climate change category. Indicators Performance level Level of Hue Score of Hue 1. Tree canopy (m 2 /person) <5 5 <6 6 <8 8 <10 10 <12 12 18 100 2. Renewable energy / total used energy (%) <1 1 <2 2 <3 3 <4 4 <5 5 <1 0 3. Public transport (%) <1 1 <5 5 <10 10 <15 15 <20 20 <5 20 Score 0 20 40 60 80 100 4. Climate change action plan Unavailable Available Available 100 Score 0 100 3.2. Weighting of indicators and categories Each indicator received a weighting value between 0 and 100 %, reflecting its significance level (weight). However, the total value of all indicators within a category should be equal to 100 % to match with 5 assessment bands scoring from 0 to 100. In addition, as recommended by IUCN (2001), all indicator weights within a category should be equalized in case of sustainability assessment. For instance, if a category consists of 4 indicators, the weight of each would be 25 % (100% / 4). Thus, the weight of indicators under the category of water is 20 % (100% / 5). Likewise, the indicator weights of air, solid waste, and climate change were calculated at 25 %, 33 % and 25 %, respectively. Assessing urban environmental sustainability by means of indicators: the case of Hue city 199 The weighting of each category was defined based on scoring inputs from 30 local experts who are engaged in the management of natural resources and environment. The total weight of 4 categories was also rebased to 100%, so that the score of each is in parallel with 5 performance bands ranging from 0 to 100. The expert-based scoring and the related category weights are summarized in Table 6. Table 6. Category weights for Hue city from local experts’ inputs. No Category Total score given by experts Category weight 1 Water 279 33% 2 Air 214 26% 3 Solid waste 239 29% 4 Climate change 103 12% Total weight 100% 3.3. Calculation of category score and overall score The category score comprises aggregate scores of its underlying indicators multiplied by their corresponding weights. The overall score, also known as index, is essentially the sum of all category score rebased to 100. Finally, the city was placed in 1 of 5 ranking bands for both categories and the overall. The performance criteria are standards of achievement for each category or each indicator. Please refer to Table 6 and 7 for these calculation and ranking outcomes. Table 7. Category scores for Hue city. Category Aggregate score of underlying indicators Weight of underlying indicators Category score Category ranking Water 380 20% 76 Fairly good Air 340 25% 85 Good Solid waste 280 33% 93 Good Climate change 220 25% 55 Medium The calculation results in Table 8 revealed that its overall score is 80.6. With this score, Hue city was generally ranked “fairly good” as compared to the 5 ranging bands. This rank totally matches with the fact that the city received in 2014 the ASEAN Environmentally Sustainable Cities Award for its efforts to handle challenges concerning environmental pollution and climate change. Table 8. Overall score for Hue city. Category Category score Category weight Calculation of overall score Water 76 33% 76 x 33% = 25.4 Air 85 26% 85 x 26% = 21.8 Solid waste 93 29% 93 x 29% = 26.6 Climate change 55 12% 55 x 12% = 6.8 OVERALL SCORE 80.6 Tran Anh Tuan, Le Thi Phuong Chi 200 Given the results of category and overall, Hue city needs to take into account the following issues to improve its urban environmental sustainability: - The climate change response with an emphasis placed upon the increase of renewable energy and public transport. - The water issues with a focus on the sewer system coverage, and the collection and treatment of domestic wastewater. Fortunately, the JICA-funded project on water environment improvement in Hue city has been in place. The project targets refurbishing and extending the stormwater drainage system of the southern area of Hue as well as building and developing the system for collecting and treating around 70% of domestic wastewater in this area by 2020. - The maintenance of good air quality like it is now with an attention paid to the increased monitoring frequency on ambient air quality in the city. The above results provide useful information in a contracted and understandable form to assess the environmentally sustainable level of Hue city. Hence, it is absolutely crucial for various cities in Vietnam to determine whether their sustainable city vision has been fulfilled by using the above assessment process. In doing so, it would help the local authority identify priority issues and draw up relevant strategies to keep the equilibrium between the environment and development. 4. CONCLUSION The assessment of urban environmental sustainability in Hue city is considered the first case in Viet Nam as to practical use of the indicator set developed by MONRE. In general, the urban environmental sustainability of Hue city was ranked “fairly good”. It proved that the proposed 5 – step assessment process and the recommended barometer with 5 ranging bands, developed on the basis of IUCN Resource Kit for Sustainability Assessment, were suitable for the assessment of both category and overall on environmentally sustainable city. It is also much expected that the assessment results would be fully integrated into the regular processes of decision-making of local authority to guide concerned policies and actions. REFERENCES 1. Mori K., Christodoulou A. - Review of sustainability indices and indicators: towards a new city sustainability index (CSI), Environmental Impact Assessment Review 32 (1) (2012) 94-106. 2. 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