Índices de sustentabilidade municipal: o desafio de mensurar

This paper tracks progress toward municipal sustainability at the main cities of the Piracicaba River Basin. The sustainability indexes system combines measures of environmental quality, human wellbeing, institutional capacity and anthropogenic pressure. The river and it basin are seen as a life witness of the regional environment health and as the main methodological tool to integrate and compare information produced by multiple sources under different methodologies and disciplinary approaches. The Piracicaba Basin was chosen as the study area due to the numerous possibilities it presents for the analysis and study of important environmental problems. It has a large and important protected area of Atlantic Forest; the most important iron-steel industrial complex in Brazil; mining areas; an expanding cellulose industrial complex; enormous areas of eucalyptus monoculture plantations; a variety of agricultural and cattle ranching activities and a rapid growing urban system that includes major regional urban centers.