Indicators for sustainable land use management in Santiago de Chile

Indicators are helpful tools for land use management; especially in the context of sustainable urban development, they are indispensable information bases for decision making, communication, and awareness rising. For Santiago de Chile, like many other large and dynamic cities, a high complexity of geographical conditions, social and land use pattern, diverging interests, and a high velocity of development are characteristic. In this situation, the Risk Habitat Megacity (RHM) initiative seeks to support local and regional authorities in elaborating indicators applicable in land use and flood risk management. In this article, the indicator approach of the Land Use Management group within the RHM initiative is presented. Based on the analysis of characteristics of and demands on sustainability indicators, existing indicator sets for Santiago de Chile are analysed. Thereafter, the indicator set for sustainable land use management in Santiago de Chile is presented. It was elaborated in a combined bottom-up and top-down approach in discussion with Chilean scientists and stakeholders in order to guarantee its relevancy to practice. The analysis of the already existing indicators in Santiago de Chile shows that the newly developed toolset forms a valuable and complementary addition, mainly for two reasons: the interdisciplinary nature of the set and its reproducibility. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.