Evaluation of Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) in the Countries around the Caspian Sea

The purpose of the present paper is to study the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) of the countries around the Caspian Sea. ESI is an important composite index that tracks a diverse set of socio-economic, environmental, and institutional indicators that characterize and influence environmental sustainability at the national scale.. In this paper ESI will be used as the basis for the evaluation and for drawing up policy-making guidelines in order to help achieving better performance levels for the five countries located around The Caspian Sea region during 2005 - 2007. The ESI values onto a zero to 100 scales, where 100 corresponded to the target and zero to the worst observed value. Our findings show the Caspian Sea region has moderate ESI Score, Russia, enjoys high performance comparing to other countries in the region. On the contrary, Turkmenistan has the lowest ESI. Also the results show, Iran has low Environmental Systems score, moderate Stresses and Vulnerability score and very low Capacity and Stewardship score that indicate this country faces many challenges, both natural and manmade, and have poorly managed its policy choices

کلیدواژه ها:

Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) ، Caspian Sea Region