Territorial sustainability evaluation for policy management: The case study of Italy and Spain

Sustainable development is nowadays the guiding principle to address policies and development strategies at global level. European Union is the main reference point as concerning the sustainability policies in Europe, which have to combine economic, social and environmental considerations in an integrated way. UE should set common objectives of sustainable development at Union level, to be calibrated on the basis of the different countries situation and territorial and local characteristics. The main aim of this paper is to use the tested model GeoUmbriaSUIT, found very suitable for territorial sustainability assessment, for evaluating sustainability at territorial level of two different European countries, i.e. Italy and Spain. Two of the Mediterranean countries “par excellence” were analysed, to individuate the development patterns of both the countries, according to the three dimensions of sustainability. The results of the analysis showed the presence of a decreasing trend of sustainable development going from the north to the south, for both the countries. Moreover, Italy and Spain seemed to have similar patterns for the social and economic dimensions, while they had different performances for the environmental one. This kind of information and other results found with this analysis are very useful for constructing policy models, and addressing specific measures looking at the local situation of the single regions, their territorial position, their strengths or weakness in relation to the different dimensions of sustainability.