TITLE:
Sustainability Atlas of Texas Ecoregions
AUTHORS:
Faye Anderson, Najla N. J. Al-Thani
KEYWORDS:
Sustainability Assessment, Environmental Indicators, Economic Indicators, Social Indicators, Texas Ecoregions, Triple Bottom-Line, People Planet Profit
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies,
Vol.3 No.4,
December
23,
2015
ABSTRACT: Since the introduction of the triple bottom line sustainability assessment accounting, a variety of
approaches have been developed to quantify sustainability using the three axes of social, economic
and environmental sustainability. The aim of this atlas is to assess the sustainability of Texas
natural ecoregions: the Piney Woods, the Gulf Prairies and marshes, the Post Oak Savanah, the
Blackland Prairies, the Cross Timbers, the South Texas Plains, the Edwards Plateau, the Rolling
Plains, the High Plains and the Trans-Pecos, by identifying a set of indicators. These are unemployment,
children in poverty, severity of housing problems, daily PM2.5 concentrations, population
affected by drinking water violation, total water use, organic production, non-obesity and attainment
of post-secondary education. Despite the limitations of inherent inaccuracies and temporal
limitation, the assessment points to issues that negatively affect the environmental sustainability
of Texas ecoregions. Continual assessment is recommended to optimize the atlas.