title: Assessing Rural Sustainable Development potentialities using a Dominance-based Rough Set Approach.
abstract: Rural Development is a priority in Europe and it is supported by specific, financial programmes. At the same time, sustainability is the key word for the European Union to construct programmes and policies for all human activities. However, measuring sustainability of rural areas is not easy, due to their particular features. The improvement of knowledge on sustainability in rural areas is important to build long term policies and strategies for those territories. The objective of this study is the development of a decision support system based on the Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA), to assess the level of Rural Sustainable Development in specific areas. We used DRSA to analyze the level of sustainability of the 92 municipalities of the Region of Umbria, Italy. The results were synthesized in a final ranking, taking into account the equilibrium and the integration between development and sustainability of each municipality. DRSA showed a high potential in the context of management or planning, and for supporting Decision Makers. DRSA is able to give a ranking as well as an explanation of the main factors driving sustainable development in rural areas.
authors.affiliation: University of Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno, 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy. Electronic address: antonio.boggia@unipg.it.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boggia
authors.affiliation: University of Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno, 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy. Electronic address: lucia.rocchi@unipg.it.
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rocchi
authors.affiliation: University of Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno, 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy. Electronic address: luisa.paolotti@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Luisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Paolotti
authors.affiliation: University of Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno, 74, 06121 Perugia, Italy. Electronic address: francesco.musotti@unipg.it.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Musotti
authors.affiliation: University of Catania, Corso Italia, 55, 95129 Catania, Italy; Portsmouth Business School, Operations & Systems Management University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3DE, United Kingdom. Electronic address: salgreco@unict.it.
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Greco
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D006802:Human Activities; D007558:Italy; D018803:Models, Economic; D012424:Rural Population; D012939:Social Planning
keywords: Dominance-based Rough Set Approach; Multi-criteria analysis; Rural development; Sustainable development