A Practical Approach to Evaluate Sustainability in Water Management

Sustainability has become a popular word since the last decades, but a practical approach to evaluate sustainability not existed. The evaluation of sustainability in water management needs criteria/indicators and objectives, which define what is good or bad. For comparing sustainable water management alternatives an evaluation method to integrate and rank calculated indicators is needed as well. The short board method suggested in this paper is suitable even for hand calculations and is appropriate also to be used for lecturing the main principles of sustainability. When calculating the indicator values, the precision of the calculation results depends on the reliability of input information of the parameters contained in the indicator formula. An overall index gradually calculated by integration and loss of information. The system is simple enough to be understood by decision makers and gives sufficient support.