Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators: A semantic similarity analysis

Abstarct: Urban sustainability assessment is an effective method for objectively presenting the current state of sustainable urban development and diagnosing sustainability-related issues. As the global community intensifies its efforts to implement the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the dema...

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Main Authors: Yunlin He, Tianshu Yu, Jiangming Ma
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. 2024-12-01
Series:Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2325426224000706
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author Yunlin He
Tianshu Yu
Jiangming Ma
author_facet Yunlin He
Tianshu Yu
Jiangming Ma
author_sort Yunlin He
collection DOAJ
description Abstarct: Urban sustainability assessment is an effective method for objectively presenting the current state of sustainable urban development and diagnosing sustainability-related issues. As the global community intensifies its efforts to implement the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the demand for assessing progress in urban sustainable development has increased. This has led to the emergence of numerous indicator systems with varying scales and themes published by different entities. Cities participating in these evaluations often encounter difficulties in matching indicators or the absence of certain indicators. In this context, urban decision-makers and planners urgently need to identify substitute indicators that can express the semantic meaning of the original indicators and consider the availability of indicators for participating cities. Hence, this study explores the relationships of substitution between indicators and constructs a collection of substitute indicators to serve as a reference for sustainable urban development assessment. Specifically, building on a review of international and Chinese indicators related to urban sustainability assessment, this study employs natural semantic analysis methods based on the Word2Vec model and cosine similarity algorithm to calculate the similarity between indicators related to sustainable urban development. The results show that the Skip-gram algorithm with a word vector dimensionality of 600 has the best performance in terms of calculating the similarity between sustainable urban development assessment indicators. The findings provide valuable insights into selecting substitute indicators for future sustainable urban development assessment, particularly in China.
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publishDate 2024-12-01
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spelling doaj-art-804daf37e42d40518fca119ebf63b79a2025-08-20T02:39:51ZengKeAi Communications Co., Ltd.Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment2325-42622024-12-0122443644210.1016/j.cjpre.2024.11.007Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators: A semantic similarity analysisYunlin He0Tianshu Yu1Jiangming Ma2China Architecture Design & Research Group, Beijing 100044, China; China National Engineering Research Center for Human Settlements, Beijing 100044, China; Guangxi Key Laboratory of Landscape Resources Conservation and Sustainable Utilization in Lijiang River Basin, Guilin 541006, China; Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541006, ChinaChina Architecture Design & Research Group, Beijing 100044, China; China National Engineering Research Center for Human Settlements, Beijing 100044, China; College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China; Corresponding author.Guangxi Key Laboratory of Landscape Resources Conservation and Sustainable Utilization in Lijiang River Basin, Guilin 541006, China; Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541006, ChinaAbstarct: Urban sustainability assessment is an effective method for objectively presenting the current state of sustainable urban development and diagnosing sustainability-related issues. As the global community intensifies its efforts to implement the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the demand for assessing progress in urban sustainable development has increased. This has led to the emergence of numerous indicator systems with varying scales and themes published by different entities. Cities participating in these evaluations often encounter difficulties in matching indicators or the absence of certain indicators. In this context, urban decision-makers and planners urgently need to identify substitute indicators that can express the semantic meaning of the original indicators and consider the availability of indicators for participating cities. Hence, this study explores the relationships of substitution between indicators and constructs a collection of substitute indicators to serve as a reference for sustainable urban development assessment. Specifically, building on a review of international and Chinese indicators related to urban sustainability assessment, this study employs natural semantic analysis methods based on the Word2Vec model and cosine similarity algorithm to calculate the similarity between indicators related to sustainable urban development. The results show that the Skip-gram algorithm with a word vector dimensionality of 600 has the best performance in terms of calculating the similarity between sustainable urban development assessment indicators. The findings provide valuable insights into selecting substitute indicators for future sustainable urban development assessment, particularly in China.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2325426224000706Urban sustainability assessmentSustainable developmentSemantic analysisWord2VecCosine similarity
spellingShingle Yunlin He
Tianshu Yu
Jiangming Ma
Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators: A semantic similarity analysis
Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment
Urban sustainability assessment
Sustainable development
Semantic analysis
Word2Vec
Cosine similarity
title Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators: A semantic similarity analysis
title_full Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators: A semantic similarity analysis
title_fullStr Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators: A semantic similarity analysis
title_full_unstemmed Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators: A semantic similarity analysis
title_short Substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators: A semantic similarity analysis
title_sort substitutability of urban sustainability assessment indicators a semantic similarity analysis
topic Urban sustainability assessment
Sustainable development
Semantic analysis
Word2Vec
Cosine similarity
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2325426224000706
work_keys_str_mv AT yunlinhe substitutabilityofurbansustainabilityassessmentindicatorsasemanticsimilarityanalysis
AT tianshuyu substitutabilityofurbansustainabilityassessmentindicatorsasemanticsimilarityanalysis
AT jiangmingma substitutabilityofurbansustainabilityassessmentindicatorsasemanticsimilarityanalysis