Analysis Measuring the biophysical dimension of urban sustainability Zeev Stossel ⁎, Meidad Kissinger, Avinoam Meir Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel abstract article info Article history: Received 1 February 2015 Received in revised form 14 October 2015 Accepted 20 October 2015 Available online 11 November 2015 Keywords: Urban biophysical sustainability Environmental indicators Relative and absolute indices Spatial scales Environmental policy An ecological economics perspective on urban sustainability embraces a biophysical view which emphasizes the dependence of cities on vast quantities of natural capital from various sources and spatial scales, and the gener- ation of urban wastes which impact the local, regional and global systems. In recent years, several sets of urban sustainability indicators and indices have been developed. However, only a few consider the complex multi-scale interactions between the urban activities and the environment. Furthermore, most existing indices use a relative evaluation approach instead of an absolute approach that is needed when dealing with ecological thresholds. The paper introduces a new urban biophysical sustainability index whose framework includes: the city environmen- tal quality, use of natural resources, and GHG emissions. Each contains topics for assessment related to local, re- gional and global scales and associated indicators. Standard and optimum values were determined for each indicator and a formula is provided for grading each indicator measurement. The integration of those grades al- lows for generation of a compound score of each topic, category, spatial scale and the entire urban biophysical sustainability performance. It then demonstrates the index in three major Israeli cities. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction As our world becomes increasingly urban, it is clear that human well-being and sustainability are connected to cities and the way they function (Sassen, 2011; Holden et al., 2008; Rees, 1997). An ecological economics perspective on urban sustainability embraces a biophysical view which emphasizes the dependence of cities on vast quantities of natural capital from various sources and spatial scales, and acknowl- edges the generation of urban wastes which impact the local (the city), regional and global systems (Newman and Jennings, 2008; Newman, 2006; Rees, 1997). Following the strong sustainability ap- proach advanced by ecological economists (Costanza et al., 2012; Daly and Farley, 2010; Costanza, 1996), a sustainable city should meet all of the following three criteria: (1) good environmental quality within its boundaries; (2) the city does not harm the environmental quality and climate elsewhere outside its boundaries; and (3) the city operates within the limits of domestic and global ecosystems (i.e., its resource consumption is sustainable). Given these criteria, an imperative of urban governance should be the conservation of urban, regional and global natural capital assets. An important step in this direction is mea- suring and analyzing the interactions between cities and the environ- ment at those geographical scales. In recent years, several sets of urban sustainability indicators and in- dices have been developed (e.g. GCIF—Global City Indicators Facility, 2013; Shen et al., 2011; Berrini and Bono, 2010; Scipioni et al., 2009; Hoornweg et al., 2008; Newton, 2001; Shane and Graedel, 2000; Mega, 2000; Huang et al., 1998; Dovern et al., 2013; Dizdaroglu et al., 2012; Montero et al., 2010; Van Dijk and Mingshun, 2005). They provide information about the state of the environment and identify compo- nents of urban activity that are not environmentally sustainable. Use of these assessments contributes to better understanding of complex city–environment interactions and has the potential to increase the awareness of public and policy makers of important areas for policy and action needed for advancing sustainability (Singh et al., 2012; Fragkou, 2009; Button, 2002; Alberti, 1996). However, a review of urban sustainability measurement literature reveals that most existing tools cannot provide a comprehensive mea- surement of a city's bio-physical sustainability. Hence the feedback re- ceived by city stakeholders from existing assessments is limited, representing only a partial picture of the state of urban bio-physical sus- tainability. Shortcomings of existing measurement tools include the fol- lowing: (1) most urban sustainability assessments include indicators for only a few biophysical characteristics alongside several socio-economic ones; therefore they cannot comprehensively assess the bio-physical aspect of urban sustainability; (2) most existing assessments are rela- tive, comparing the performance of a studied urban entity to the perfor- mance of others. Only a few refer to environmental thresholds and present absolute scores; and (3) they focus on either the state of the en- vironment within the city boundaries (e.g., air quality index) or on local global interactions (e.g., ecological and carbon footprint assessments) rather than integrating local, regional and global interactions into the analysis. The objective of this paper is to propose a framework for a new urban biophysical sustainability index (UBSI) that aims to tackle the abovementioned shortcomings of existing tools. It takes into account Ecological Economics 120 (2015) 153–163 ⁎ Corresponding author. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.10.010 0921-8009/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon