Criteria for Development and Application of Perceived Environmental Quality Indices

To develop a method for measuring or indexing environmental quality, some conception of what determines the quality of the environment must be established. What combinations of features or characteristics distinguish a “poor quality” environment from one of “mediocre quality” or “excellent quality”? If only an indication of the minimal requirements for the support of human life were desired, perhaps a set of features could be identified and assessed rather directly. However, the requirements for the support of an individual human life hardly approximate the level of environmental quality required to support, now and in the future, man living in complex, interrelated societies. Even if minimum subsistence levels were established, they could provide no more than an “absolute zero” for a scale of environmental quality. Environmental quality assessment (happily) can, for the present at least, be concerned with the identification and gauging of environmental features that are required to maintain a “quality of life” that is substantially above bare subsistence or survival levels.