Urban sustainability assessment framework development: The ranking and weighting of sustainability indicators using analytic hierarchy process

Abstract

The consideration of local contexts in urban sustainability assessment is important for developing countries because of their varying needs and priorities. Using Iraq as a case study, a stakeholder-driven structured methodology is presented which identifies and ranks context-relevant indicators and assigns weights for aggregating indicator scores by applying analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Results indicate that the identified factors and their weights and priorities for Iraq were markedly different from the widely-used tools — suggesting that global tools are not directly applicable in developing countries. In contrast with the ‘ecological’ focus in the global assessment frameworks, economic and infrastructural aspects of urban development are of greater importance in developing countries. Decades of political instability and the resulting deterioration of infrastructures in Iraq are manifested in the related indicators being rated highly important by the stakeholders, and their corresponding high weighting in the developed Iraqi urban sustainability assessment framework (IUSAF). ‘Water’, ‘safety’, and ‘transportation and infrastructure’ indicators were awarded high weighting scores of 8.5%, 7.9% and 7.8%, respectively. IUSAF is envisaged to play a key role in the promotion of built environment sustainability in Iraq by stimulating market demand for sustainable buildings, cities and conurbations.