Community Indicator Development

1
Community Indicator Development

• Lecture 13

2
Overview

• What are indicators?
• Indicators and Sustainable Development
• Coming up with good indicators
• The indicator selection process
• Making indicators dynamic
• Sample indicators
• Implementing and improving indicators

3
What is an indicator?

• Examples
• Mothers and babies activity and breathing
• Learning of children test scores and grades
• Farmers and crops number of earthworms the sky
• Doctors and health temperature, BP, tests
• Mechanics and cars pressure, noises
• Economists and the Economy Dow-Jones average,
  GDP, interest rates, exchange rates
• Other terminology sign, symptom, omen, signal,
  measurement, warning light

4
Indicators and Values

• Indicators arise from values
• Portuguese young people, about a new place (1)
  how many days does the sun shine (2) how many Km
  of clean beach (3) on the streets are the people
  warm and friendly
• We measure what we value
• We value what we measure

5
Impacts of Bad Indicator Selection

• Result Serious malfunction
• Example GDP- does not necessarily get you social
  justice, environmental quality, freedom, or real
  wealth
• Indicators are at the center of decision making
• Action is taken depending on the discrepancy
  between the desired state (goal) and the
  perceived state of the system
• Bad indicators produce bad decisions

6
Pitfalls in Indicator Development

• Overaggregation (GDP)
• Measuring what is measurable rather than
  important (size of forest rather than diversity)
• Dependence on false model (no. of kids vs. family
  planning availability)
• Deliberate falsification (unemployment in US)
• Diverting attention from direct experience (Stock
  market going great means economy is fine!)
• Overconfidence (indicators may look good but lead
  to wrong actions)
• Incompleteness (dont provide info on aesthetics,
  wonders, diversity)

7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
What Makes A Good Indicator?
10
Indicators Should Show Linkages
11
Traditional Indicator
12
A more personal indicator
13
Combining them
14
Measure cause and effect

• Pressure activity causing state
• State conditions that exist
• Response actions to change state

15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
From Fraser Basin Workbook Oct 2000
www.fraserbasin.bc.ca
20
http//www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/cnt/indicators/pola
nd/poland.htm
21
Summary and Conclusion

• MEASURE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE!