A Novel Environmental Awareness Index Measured Cross-Nationally For Fifty Seven Countries
Journal Title: Universal Journal of Environmental Research and Technology - Year 2014, Vol 4, Issue 4
Abstract
Today, a number of major challenges exist for measuring environmental awareness cross-nationally. These are 1) conceptualising environmental awareness and its relation to concrete behaviour is still under development; 2) the lack of a universally applicable methodology for country comparisons; and 3) the lack of an easy-to-use tool for data gathering for global studies. After overcoming these challenges, a new Environmental Awareness Index (EAI) was constructed. Six hypotheses were formulated on the EAI, relating to 1) national wealth; 2) state of the environment; 3) postmaterialist values; 4) self-transcendence values; 5) self-enhancement values; and 6) gender equality. EAI scores from 57 countries were measured for cross-national comparisons. The countries scoring highest on the EAI are Austria, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Denmark. All the countries with the highest EA are found in Europe. Of the non-European countries, the best performers are Japan, New Zealand and Canada. The weakest EAI scores were found in Southern Asia, Mexico and Africa. Additionally, the perceived current state and trend of the environment in 57 countries was compared. The results indicate that, globally, the perceived state of the environment is rather worrying and in most countries deteriorating. After calculating correlations of the six hypotheses and the measured indicators of the study, the results show support to all six hypotheses. This study strongly indicates that significantly better correlations with the other national-level indices are achieved by studying EA with our wider approach (EAI consisting of motivation, knowledge and skills) than by studying customarily only environmental concern.
Authors and Affiliations
Pekka Harju-Autti and Eevi Kokkinen
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP31889
- DOI -
- Views 369
- Downloads 2
Noise Levels in Dussehara at Mahewa, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh
The present research focused on noise level monitoring during pre dussehara, post and during dussehara day’s at Mahewa, Naini Allahabad. The variation of noise levels L10, L90 and Leq were observed during pre dussehara...
Feasibility Studies for Reuse of Constructed Wetlands Treating Simulated Nickel Containing Groundwater
Constructed wetlands are considered as low cost treatment option for domestic and industrial wastewater in the recent decades. The presence of toxic heavy metals in wastewater is a problematic issue, since these heavy...
Potential of Cyperus Papyrus in Yard-Scale Horizontal Flow Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment in Cameroon
The objective of this study was to evaluate the performances of Cyperus papyrus in horizontal flow constructed wetlands used for domestic wastewater treatment. Two system configurations were used: the horizontal surfac...
A Survey on the Rural Solid Wastes Characteristics in North Iran (Babol)
Today, scattering and dumping of solid wastes is one of the basic problems in rural areas of Iran. It is necessary to identify the quality and quantity of solid waste before making any decision about rural solid waste...
TiO2 as an Oxidant for Removal of Chemical Oxygen Demand from Sewage
Photo-catalysis of wastewater using titanium dioxide is an advanced oxidation process (AOP) for environmental remediation. Advanced Oxidation Process can mineralize a wide range of organic compound and convert it into...