Urban environmental quality and human well-being: Towards a conceptual framework and demarcation of concepts; a literature study

Construction of a multidisciplinary conceptual framework of environmental quality and quality of life is required to advance the field of urban development, environmental quality and human well-being. Such a framework would allow for a more theory-based choice of indicators and for the development of tools to evaluate multidimensional aspects of urban environmental quality. These tools are required to assess the current and future quality of the urban environment and to have, eventually, the ability to assess the implications of spatial and urban planning policies with respect to these dimensions. Against this background, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands (RIVM) performed a major literature review [Leidelmeijer, van Kamp, 2002, in press] to identify various concepts in the literature concerning environmental quality, the relationships between these various concepts, as well as their respective theoretical bases. This paper summarises the outcomes of this survey. It reviews the main (types of) concepts of livability, environmental quality, quality of life and sustainability, and presents examples of underlying conceptual models. Different notions and concepts are compared along the dimensions of domain, indicator, scale, time-frame and context as described by [Urban Environmental Quality—a social geographical perspective, this issue]. It is concluded that a multidisciplinary conceptual framework of environmental quality and quality of life that will go beyond the disciplinary differences found in the current literature is needed if the field is to advance.