Weaknesses Of Indicators Research Articles

Advantages and Weaknesses of Indicators for the Assessment of Active Ageing Processes

The article studies the principles for the assessment of active ageing processes as an important component in implementing the Political Strategy on Healthy and Active Longevity of the Population till 2022 and the respective Action Plan. The advantages and weaknesses of the Active Ageing Index (AAI), constructed by the UN European Economic Commission and the Directorate General of the European Commission on Employment, Social Policy and Integration, are revealed through analyzing three core objectives of active ageing and solidarity between generations: employment, social participation, and independent life. By the results of the analysis, the advantages of AAI application include: the usability for monitoring and cross-country comparisons; the possibility to reveal the spheres requiring improvements to assure the high quality life. The weaknesses are as follows: the majority of indicators are based on assumptions; the indicators of old people’s employment do not account for age-specific limitations on the employment in some professions etc. It is argued that the weaknesses of the existing indices can be addressed by clarifying the indicators’ definitions and implementing additional recommendations for interviewing the elderly. 
 An analysis of AAI in countries of East Europe and Central Asia shows that its average level is 66. Belarus, Turkey and Georgia are the only countries from the studied group with the scores corresponding with this level or exceeding it. In all the other countries AAI is lower than the average. The assessment for Ukraine by the adopted methodology is not possible due to unavailability and shortage of statistical data. 
 Recommendations on constructing the set of indicators for the assessment of active ageing processes in Ukraine are elaborated, including the four targeted domains: “Employment – contribution of the elderly”; “Social participation – contribution of the elderly through unpaid activities”; “Independent, healthy and secure life”; “Opportunities and favorable environment for active ageing”. The need for improving the statistical data collection is substantiated. The conclusion is made that AAI is an important indicator of the quality of life of the elderly population and an indicator of the effectiveness of social reforms, health care reforms etc. The AAI components can be taken in consideration in constructing the revenue and expenditure profiles of the public budget and local budgets. 
 Further studies in this field should be focused on quantifying the link between active ageing and national economy growth.

Challenges in developing regionalized characterization factors in land use impact assessment: impacts on ecosystem services in case studies of animal protein production in Sweden

PurposeThe UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative has recently developed a guideline framework for land use impact assessment. This article evaluates the feasibility and highlights the challenges of applying a set of methods that adhere to this framework, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the indicators used in these methods, for the purpose of supporting further methodological development.MethodsThe methods were tested in two case studies of animal protein production in Sweden: dairy milk and pork. The reference situations were defined as the potential natural vegetation. County-level characterization factors (CFs) were calculated and occupation impacts were assessed for five ecosystem services, using six ecosystem service indicators: carbon flow change, groundwater recharge, mechanical filtration capacity, physicochemical filtration capacity, soil loss, and soil organic carbon, at two geographic scales: county and biome. Strengths and weaknesses of the ecosystem service indicators were identified using an evaluation framework for selected quality characteristics: representativeness, reliability, feasibility, and transparency.Results and discussionOccupation impacts at the two geographic scales, and for the two production cases, differ both in absolute numbers, and—for mechanical and physicochemical filtration capacity—in the ranking of cases. Results at both geographic scales indicate positive effects—or lower negative impacts—in protein production from dairy milk compared to pork, due to grass production on dairy farms, and lower use of land per unit protein. However, some of the observed benefits may be exaggerated due to challenges in adequately representing the reference situations. Most indicators were assigned medium or high degrees of representativeness, feasibility, and transparency, but several were assigned low degrees of reliability, due to the weak scientific basis upon which they were selected, low degrees of accuracy, and insufficient information on how they should be assessed.ConclusionsOccupation impact results should be interpreted with caution due to challenges in applying the methods and use of indicators with identified weaknesses. The most challenging part of developing regionalized CFs was finding suitable land areas from which to derive representative data to parameterize the reference situations. More research is needed to provide adequate support to life cycle assessment practitioners who wish to calculate regionalized CFs and to address the identified weaknesses.

Environmental health indicators

Ecologists have proposed hundreds of quantitative indicators of the status of ecosystems for evaluation of and reporting on the status of marine ecosystems. The talk applies a common approach to classifying indicators, summarises the main properties of each class of indicator, and provides some illustrations. Indicators of ecosystem status have roles in both communication and decision support. For both roles, strengths and weaknesses of indicators are usually only partially known. Few have been tested systematically for sensitivity and robustness across a range of contexts… However, to determine best practices for selecting indicators for specific uses, one must have a fairly complete understanding of the information content of the various indicators. The paper explores some alternative approaches to documenting the information content of various indicators of ecosystem status. As the Precautionary Approach becomes broadly used as the basis for management decision-making, the role of indicators of ecosystem status becomes central. The PA is made operational in decision-making through use of indicators and reference points. This means that it is necessary to identify values of an ecosystem indicator associated with harm to the environment that is serious or difficult to reverse. Methods for identifying and justifying reference points for ecosystem indicators are being developed and tested, but the task is turning out to be complex. Alternative strategies for identifying reference points are reviewed. When choices must be made from a suite of candidate indicators, it is desirable make the selection on objective grounds. This requires explicit a priori criteria, on which there is not yet scientific consensus. Recent developments in this area are reviewed, and again a way forward proposed.