A Study on Composite Environmental Indices in Korea : Reinvited

한국의 종합환경지수 산정에 대한 재고찰

Kang et al. (1999) computed a composite environmental index in Korea by practicing the survey for environmental experts. They used the weighted sum form among feasible aggregation forms. In this study, we carry out the survey for both experts and non-experts to see the degree of differences of the weights for nine types of environmental problems between two groups. In addition, we apply different aggregation forms such as linear sum, weighted sum, root-sum-power, root-mean-square forms and compare these four outcomes. We found no significant discrepancy in the trends of composite indices. In case we rely on the weights provided by the experts, the composite index, on average, has been increased annually by about 7.2% over the 1986~1997 period, which informs us that overall environmental quality in 1997 has been worse than in 1986 by about 1.8 times.