FORMATION OF CRITERIA AND INDICATORS FOR EVALUATION OF ECOLOGICAL SAFETY LEVEL OF REGIONS OF UKRAINE

Abstract

This article discusses a methodological approach to the comparative assessment of the regions of the state in terms of environmental safety. A system of indicators characterizing the state of environmental safety in the regional dimension is proposed. It is proved that environmental risk assessment is considered the most promising approach to determining the degree of environmental hazard of the territory. The concept of such assessment in almost all countries of the world and international organizations is regarded as the main mechanism for the development and adoption of management decisions on environmental protection. In the analysis of the existing methodological developments it is established that the environmental hazard assessment is based on several basic approaches. The most commonly used are the indicator based on the system of selected indicators (or indicative method). It is established that the level of environmental safety is quite broad, since it requires consideration of all the components of this process: from the calculation of the level of environmental safety to the assessment of management decisions to overcome environmental risks and prevention. An integral indicator of the level of environmental safety of the regions is proposed, which is based on taking into account the degree of risk of occurrence of environmental losses. The toolkit of existing theoretical and methodological approaches to hazard identification was tested. It has been instrumentally demonstrated that the assessment of the level of environmental and natural-anthropogenic hazards is quite complex as it involves many aspects. Effective comparison of the regions of Ukraine with such a large amount of information is possible only in some socio-economic studies, because because of the variability of different indicators of the level of environmental load it is difficult to determine the impact of which is decisive. An appropriate system of indicators was developed when designing an instrumental framework for determining the level of environmental hazard. It includes indicators of socio-ecological and economic development of regions of Ukraine in dynamics, grouped by function. The system of aggregation of indicators of ecological safety of the region and information matrix of analysis of natural and anthropogenic safety of the region have been developed.