Methodology to determine the sustainability level of geographical zones according to its major use. Application in three districts of the Amazonas region, 2020

Abstract

Sustainability could be defined as the maintenance of a system over time. Sustainability assessment consists of evaluating the level of deterioration of ecosystems and then projecting their conservation for use by future generations. For this purpose, many methodologies have been developed, which measure the sustainability of a specific objective, but most of them have two deficiencies: they cannot be applied to any geographical area, and, they do not apply to developing countries. In this research, a hybrid methodology is proposed to measure the level of sustainability of geographic areas according to their major use as a result of evaluating various methodologies. For the tool construction, the pillars of the triple helix of sustainability were used: environmental, social and economic; 23 themes were defined and 146 indicators were built. For the compilation of field information, the author developed and applied six questionnaires and the data was normalized using the Min-Max technique. Indicators and themes were weighted using expert opinion and added linearly. The Peruvian Sustainability Assessment Tool (PESAT) was applied to three cities: La Jalca, San Nicolás and Cajaruro, obtaining that the sustainability level of the three was around to 50% of the scale considered, the most sustainable was San Nicolás. The highest composite indicator corresponded to the Environmental pillar, and the lowest, below 50%, to the Economic pillar. When evaluating the composition of the indicators through the uncertainty and sensitivity analyzes, it was found that the subindicators followed a normal distribution trend, the weights were well defined and the results were significant.