p.248 Competent management of real-world problems must recognize and account
for real-world system complexity. Holistic approaches such as integrated natural resource management (INRM) and system dynamics
are therefore spreading in a wide range of disciplines... A crucial aspect of this development is the search for appropriate
indicators of system performance to condense vital information into a compact set of reliable signals for management. The
need for comprehensive indicator sets that assess system viability, performance, and sustainability is especially urgent in
management for sustainable development at all levels
p.248 There seems to be a general agreement that it is impossible to define
only a single indicator of sustainable development, and that a substantial number of indicators are necessary to capture all
the important aspects of sustainable development in a particular application... However, defining an appropriate set of indicators
for sustainable development is a difficult task. If too few indicators are monitored, crucially important developments may
escape attention. If a large number of indicators have to be examined, data acquisition and data analysis may become prohibitively
expensive and time-consuming... It is therefore essential to define a set of representative indicators that provide a comprehensive
description, or as many as are essential, but no more. But what are the "essential" indicators? ... This paper describes a
different system-based approach based on new developments in ecological and general systems theory (Muller and Leupelt 1998).
Development is seen as a coevolutionary process involving interacting systems in a common environment in which each system
follows its own path of self-organization in response to the challenges of its particular environmental circumstances.
p.252 The key to understanding viability and performance therefore lies
in understanding the challenges of a particular environment.
p.253 The normal environmental state in which humankind must develop is
characterized by laws of nature and logic that cannot be broken and that limit the spectrum of possible physical, technical,
and biological processes.
p.254 A system can be viable and sustainable only if the constraints imposed
by the fundamental environmental properties are respected. This requirement imposes certain orientations or interests on systems
in the course of their self-organizing or coevolutionary development. Systems fail when they do not respect the constraints
of their environments. This is true for species shaped by thousands of generations of evolution as well as for the technologies
or organizations developed by humans. The terms "orientation" and "interest" as used here do not imply any consciousness on
the part of the system. A system is said to have an interest or orientation if it can be observed to express a preference
(e.g., a plant growing toward light).
p.256 Because it is better adapted to its environment, the system that most
effectively satisfies all its basic orientors will have better fitness and better performance (Krebs and Bossel 1997). Assessment
of orientor satisfaction therefore provides a measure of system viability and performance in a given environment. This can
be done by identifying the indicators that provide information about how well each of the orientors is being fulfilled at
a given time. In this context, the basic orientors can serve as a checklist for asking a set of questions whose answers provide
an assessment of viability and system performance.
p.256 To assess sustainability, we have to find indicators for each essential
system within the total system in each orientor category that can answer two sets of questions. First, how viable is each
system, i.e., how satisfied is each basic orientor of that system? Second, how does a given system contribute to the viability
(the basic orientors) of another system or the total system?
p.261 To stay viable, a system must be able to respond or adapt to threats
before they do serious damage. This suggests that it is advisable to concentrate on indicators that relate the rates of viability
threats (threats to a system's basic orientors) to the rates of evasive response, or their respective inverse, the respite
time to the response time (Biesiot 1997, Bossel 1999). These two quantitative measures will often be available from system
observations. They can be combined in a nondimensional indicator by taking the ratio of the rate of system response to the
rate of system or environmental change caused by a particular threat. If the measure is greater than one, the system is viable
(with respect to that particular orientor); if it is less than one, the system's viability is threatened. Viability means
that the system can cope with challenges and will not be overwhelmed by them, i.e., that its responses can outpace the threats
to it.
p.264 The systematic and theory-based nature of the orientor method of determining
indicators is important. We are not simply asking people to find and agree on a set of indicators; we are asking them to find
answers (indicators) to very specific questions concerning all the vital aspects of viability and system performance, i.e.,
the basic orientors. In this structured approach based on systems theory and empirical evidence, we can be reasonably confident
of obtaining a comprehensive set of indicators that cover all important aspects of systems viability and performance.
