Sustainability Assessment of Coupled Human-natural Systems: Case Study of an Agrarian Village from Southern India

This book presents a methodology for integrated assessment and simulation of sustainability linkages in coupled human-natural systems (human settlements). The first part of this book is directed towards analyzing the EIA system in India and identifies areas for improvement. The second part is directed towards explaining the conceptual foundation for integrated assessment of the ecological, social, physical and financial components of sustainability in any area which is under assessment. The methodology for integrated assessment of sustainability linkages through local knowledge based cognitive mapping, elicitation of indicator status and zonal linkages is also explained in the second part. The methodology is illustrated through application in the Village of Kalarampatti in southern India. The third part of this book is devoted to bring out the utility of fuzzy inference system in building a rule based decision support system for the assessment of sustainability. This book will be useful to professionals, researchers and scholars working in the area of Sustainability of human settlements as it presents a detailed methodology to assess sustainability with a real world case study.