Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460

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Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Original Articles

Objective well-being level (OWL) composite indicator for sustainable and

resilient cities
Viktor Sebestyén a, b, *, Attila János Trájer a, Endre Domokos a, András Torma c, János Abonyi b
a
Sustainability Solutions Research Lab, University of Pannonia, Egyetem utca 10, Veszprém 8200, Hungary
b
ELKH-PE Complex Systems Monitoring Research Group, University of Pannonia, Egyetem utca 10, Veszprém 8200, Hungary
c
Department of Applied Sustainability, Széchenyi István University, Egyetem tér 1., Győr 9026, Hungary

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Well-being is a critical element of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. Given the complexity of
Well-being the concept of well-being, it follows that its measurement requires complex, multivariate methods that can
Sustainable city characterize the physical, economic, social and environmental aspects along with the mental state of a city.
Composite indicator
Although it is not sufficient to carry out settlement-level analyses to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and
Resilience enhancement
sustainable. It is necessary to understand patterns within settlements. This work aims to present how the urban
Urban macrostructure
macrostructure of urban well-being indicators can be estimated based on GIS-based multilayer analysis. Open-
source data, e.g. road networks, points of interest, green spaces and vegetation, are used to estimate urban
well-being parameters such as noise levels, air quality and health-related impacts supplemented by climate
models to assess urban resilience and sustainability. The proposed methodology integrates 24 models into six
categories, namely walkability, environment, health, society, climate change and safety, which are weighted
based on a multilevel Principal Component Analysis to minimize information loss for aggregated composite
indicators. The study revealed two main components of the macrostructure related to well-being in the studied
city: one related to the geometrical features and the other can be derived from the structure of the natural
environment. In Veszprém a natural restoration of the detached house area, industrial area and downtown is
recommended including developments with green and blue infrastructural elements and nature-based solutions.

Furthermore, human well-being and the mitigation of climate

1. Introduction
There is a consensus that sustainable development must cover both
environmental (ecological) and human well-being sustainability (Yan
et al., 2018). In fact, urban sustainability is closely related to the field of
human well-being, moreover, the relationship between well-being and
environmental degradation processes is very sensitive (Kassouri and
Altıntaş, 2020). From the psychological point of view positive associa­
tions were found between sustainable development and happiness
(Helliwell et al., 2021). Since this is indicative of improvements in the
urban environment by taking both human and environmental consid­
erations into account (Cloutier et al., 2014), urban sustainability is at the
centre of decision-making in city councils worldwide with the aim of
increasing as well as maintaining the physical and mental well-being of
its citizens (Musa et al., 2015).
change are also strongly connected due to the hedonistic attitude of
human beings and the related large carbon footprint of urban citizens
(Lamb and Steinberger, 2017), because the association between green­
house gas emissions and changes in human well-being is complex
(Lawson, 2020). Environmental degradation is a key factor since eco­
systems are the main drivers of social systems that provide a diverse
range of services (Mashizi and Sharafatmandrad, 2021). However, due
to the highly dynamic nature of urban landscapes, an understanding of
the complex relationship between improvements in urban environ­
mental quality, factors affecting human well-being and the maintenance
of sustainable urban development requires a holistic approach (Pan­
agopoulos et al., 2016).
Overall human conditions, including human health and well-being,
are affected by the landscape-modifying effect of urbanization via
several socio-cultural and environmental processes (Jennings et al.,

* Corresponding author at: Sustainability Solutions Research Lab, University of Pannonia, Egyetem utca 10, Veszprém 8200, Hungary.
E-mail addresses: sebestyen.viktor@mk.uni-pannon.hu (V. Sebestyén), trajer.attila@mk.uni-pannon.hu (A.J. Trájer), domokos.endre@uni-pannon.hu
(E. Domokos), torma@ga.sze.hu (A. Torma), janos@abonyilab.com (J. Abonyi).
URL: http://www.abonyilab.com (V. Sebestyén).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.111460
Received 15 June 2023; Received in revised form 4 September 2023; Accepted 16 December 2023
Available online 9 January 2024
1470-160X/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
V. Sebestyén et al. Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460

List of abbreviations fs Fire safety

OWL Objective well-being level as Ambulance service
POI Point of interest ps Police force
Ij Impact identification p1− 7 empirical constants of regression models
NIj Impact normalization d distance (m)
PCA Principal Component Analysis Lw Sound power level (dB)
PCAj PCA based impact clustering Dc Directivity correction (dB)
wi weight A Attenuation (dB)
n number of analyzed impacts BEX Regional background concentration of NOX (μg/m3 )
SDG Sustainable Development Goals TL50 Traffic load for a 50 m-long circular buffer (vehicles/day⋅m)
dw Daily-needs walkability POP1000,5000 Population density a for 1000 & 5000 m-long circular
pw Park walkability buffers (inhabitants/m2 )
rw Religious walkability HTL500 Heavy traffic load for a 500 m-long circular buffer
tn Traffic noise (vehicles/day⋅m)
pn Point-source noise IDM Inverse distance to all major roads (1/m)
np NOX MRL25,50 Lengths of major roads with 25 & 50 m-long circular
pp PM10 buffers (m)
op Ground-level O3 TML500 Traffic load for major roads with a 500 m-long circular
vc Vegetation cover buffer (vehicles/day⋅m)
tm Total heat-related mortality T Air temperature (◦ C)
hr Heartrate changes NDVI Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
aa Airborne aspergillus NDVIs Normalized Difference Vegetation Index for soil
ar Asthma risk NDVIv Normalized Difference Vegetation Index for vegetation
md Mood disorders (MDs) Aj Floor space of building j (m2 )
pd Population density s Specific housing area per capita (m2 /person)
bd Building density X, Y, Z Spatial coordinates for digital elevation models
pr Productivity Tday;thres Daily temperature threshold (◦ C)
dr Dirofilariasis Tmax;hi Daily maximum temperature (◦ C)
er Stormwater erosion risk OSM OpenStreetMap
hw Heat wave
eh Extremely hot days

2017). Due to urbanization, an increasing number of people are living in
an anthropogenic environment (Chaolin, 2020), which fundamentally
defines daily life, including emotions, self-sufficiency and human health.
The most rapidly urbanizing cities are in less wealthy nations in low-
income countries (Vlahov and Galea, 2002) where negative aspects of
urbanization, e.g. increased exposure to hazardous environmental con­
ditions as well as associated morbidity and mortality patterns (Harpham
and Stephens, 1991), are the most conspicuous (City et al., 2010). It is
known that the urban structure strongly influences individual well-
being (Brown et al., 2015) and depends on various factors like the
spatial patterns of urban green spaces (Reyes-Riveros et al., 2021).
Moreover, not only is their establishment a horticultural or engineering
task, social and health factors play key roles in the understanding and
scaling up of green infrastructures (Venkataramanan et al., 2019).
Even though the destruction of urban green spaces is one of the
factors which is linked to urbanization (Mensah, 2014), the effect of
green vegetation is not always positive, as invasive plant species can
cause serious environmental problems in urban environments (Shack­
leton et al., 2019). This is a growing environmental problem because the
landscape defined by the urban infrastructure and buildings has a
negative impact on human attitudes and motivations (Sen and Guchhait,
2022) as well as on health, since a consistent positive association was
found between decreased exposure to urban green spaces and general
mortality, heart rate as well as violence (Kondo et al., 2018). Recrea­
tional areas are often shifted far away from residential areas to beyond
the outskirts of cities, which is a typical urban structural problem
because solid evidence of the benefits of forest environments on our
health and well-being has yet to be confirmed. Nevertheless, benefits
may be derived based on randomized controlled trials (Oh et al., 2017),
and caring for nature refers to relationship values that truly define us as
humans (Jax et al., 2018).
Moreover, individuals who are more attached to nature tend to have
a greater degree of eudaimonic well-being and higher levels of personal
growth in particular (Pritchard et al., 2020). Although subjective well-
being is spatial in nature, the direction of these relationships is highly
dependent on how it is measured which indicates that general correla­
tion in terms of the population can differ greatly from individual ones
(Ala-Mantila et al., 2018). Noise and particle pollution from urban
public transport as well as air pollution often significantly detract from
the attractiveness of downtown areas and threaten not only to cause a
decline in the quality of life in the long run but also have a serious
detrimental effect on health, even leading to premature death (Yusuf
et al., 2001). However, environmental consciousness is not just influ­
enced by changes to measurable environment factors but by the
perception that the environment is deteriorating (Zhong and Shi, 2012).
It is well-known that the average temperature in city centers is several
degrees higher than in their rural counterparts, depending on the size of
the city concerned (Oke, 1973). In addition to the fact that high tem­
peratures at the center of heat islands during the summer also put a
strain on our psyche, its health consequences can be significant,
depending on the age group concerned and underlying diseases (Lowe,
2016). Furthermore, all the factors that are generally disadvantageous to
the resident population also have an adverse effect on tourism, which is
especially true of heat islands in city centers (Stankov et al., 2014).
Most socioeconomic factors affecting quality of life are indirectly
related to the quality of the living environment, which in turn has a
significant impact on the desire of residents to move to other arguably
more attractive places (Tiran, 2016). As a result, estimating the quality
of urban life requires a complex holistic approach that basically consists
of two dimensions, namely the subjective (well-being) and objective
(quality of the place). (Murgaš and Klobučník, 2018). The objective
factors can be grouped into three main categories: attractiveness from

2
V. Sebestyén et al.
both social and economic perspectives and attractiveness based on
environmental concerns (Sinkienė and Kromalcas, 2010). The first two
factors are fundamentally determined and still influence the develop­
ment of cities today. In practice, linking health with planning as well as
disseminating and developing good practices are key to urban devel­
opment (Barton and Grant, 2013). The economic potential of cities -
including business opportunities in addition to financial security and
stability - is more attractive to residents in cities, even in times of eco­
nomic crises (Raźniak et al., 2017).
Factors influencing economic and social attractiveness is also
comprised of the range of services available including cultural products
(education, entertainment), the spatial accessibility of healthcare ser­
vices (Kaur Khakh et al., 2019), as well as access to recreational goods
and luxury products and cultural activities (Van der Ark and Richards,
2006). The proliferation of expensive condominiums and residential
tower blocks has fundamentally changed social and economic patterns
of several developed countries over recent decades (Novak, 2020)
illustrating that the ultrastructure-level attractiveness of cities is sub­
jected to continuous functional redistribution and revitalisation pro­
cesses (Webb and Webber, 2017). The importance of the third
environmental group of factors is rapidly increasing in growing cities
(Adhikari, 2000). This is important both economically and for local in­
habitants since one’s appeal to a city is not only influenced by the
widening spectra and number of attractions in cities (Miftahuddin et al.,
2021) but also by the significant contribution regularly monitoring of
the sewage discharge and cleanliness of the visited sites makes regarding
the increase in the touristic attractiveness and liveability of a city
(Panagoda et al., 2016).
Urban livability and well-being have previously been analyzed in
several ways, for example structural equation modelling approach was
used for planning interventions to improve both the sustainability and
liveability of cities (Jiao et al., 2016). On the one hand, liveability is a
crucial component when planning sustainable cities and is strongly
linked with the health status of individuals at the physical, mental and
community levels (Chi and Mak, 2021). The One Health (OH) approach
holistically evaluates human, animal and environmental health issues
(Lebov et al., 2017), the connections of which to well-being is an
exciting research task. In several studies, the level of mental well-being
was measured on a scale of subjective satisfaction (Oswald and Wu,
2010). Psychologically speaking the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-
Being Scale (WEMWBS) used to estimate the component of psycholog­
ical health and a General Health Questionnaire are the most commonly
used forms of assessment (Krefis et al., 2018). A different approach to
objectify the problem of well-being is the quantification of potential
factors by utilizing aggregated mesoscopic patterns (Dong et al., 2020).
Such a relatively subjective concept as individual-dependent well-being
cannot be quantified without applying mixed claims and several
different kinds of general factors (Alexandrova, 2020). An abstract space
characterized by multidimensional variables such as well-being derived
from the characteristics of the urban environment cannot be examined
without the use of composite indicators (Commission et al., 2008). The
use of composite indicators in well-being has already been investigated
at country level (Otoiu et al., 2014), province level (Ciommi et al., 2017)
and city level (Sarra and Nissi, 2020; Tomaselli et al., 2021), which
enables ranking (Peiró-Palomino and Picazo-Tadeo, 2018) and national
strategy creation tasks (Mizobuchi, 2014). However, smaller-scale ana­
lyzes are indispensable for the identification of implementation sites in
cities, for which our proposed methodology handles this research gap.
The theoretical background of both objective and subjective well-
being or happiness as well as their relevant dimensions have been
explored through data science (Voukelatou et al., 2021). This paper
attempts to describe the patterns of objective well-being within the city
based on publicly available data sources. Few interdisciplinary ap­
proaches demonstrate the complexity of urban structures and dynamics
as well as their potential impacts on urban health and well-being (Krefis
et al., 2018). Therefore, the derivation of well-being parameters related
3
Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460
to the urban macrostructure is one of the main objectives of this
research.
The hypothesis of this research is that well-being is a complex phe­
nomenon that requires multivariate analysis moreover, effective devel­
opment requires the identification of implementation locations within
the cities. The design of sustainable and resilient cities requires inter­
pretable, aggregated composite indicators that minimize the informa­
tion loss associated with aggregation operators. The proposed OWL well-
being analysis tool uses 24 different models and it can be integrated into
decision support easily, as it provides information available for the
entire area of the analyzed cities. Since currently no methodology is
available to extract well-being patterns within cities, our primary aim is
to determine the objective well-being level (OWL) composite indicator
that is universally applicable to any city and explores the relationships of
well-being at different levels of abstraction. The key novelty of the
present article is a multi-objective analysis of the “health and well-
being” Sustainable Development Goal (SDG3) for cities based on which
strategic policies, programs and plans (PPPs) can be “ex-ante” identified.
Furthermore, the identified patterns can be used to support the One
Health approach, as cover human-, environmental- and animal health
indicators. In this research, the following research question is answered:
how indicators belonging to the objective part of well-being (quality of
life) can be evaluated in the whole area of a city, based on which how the
most effective improvement areas can be identified, and how the
different models can be integrated in such a way that measures can be
formulated not for 24 different development tasks, but for groups of
indicators.
2. Steps by which the objective well-being level (OWL)
composite indicator is developed
Well-being is a complex phenomenon that can be divided into
objective (life circumstances) and subjective (individual perception)
elements (Voukelatou et al., 2021). Our proposed methodology deals
only with the “quality of life” aspect, i.e. with the estimation of the
objective elements of well-being, which is why it is consistently named
objective well-being level (OWL). This research does not include the
appreciation of life and emotional responses of the persons, but only to
quantify the living conditions that can be improved by urban planning
measures by the decision support of urban strategic planning. This
section defines the objective well-being level (OWL) composite indica­
tor, which explores patterns of well-being within cities based on freely
accessible databases according to the following six categories, namely
walkability, environment, health, society, climate change and safety.
The workflow of the proposed objective well-being level (OWL) method
is shown in Fig. 1.
It can be seen from Fig. 1 that the development of this composite
indicator begins by collecting data sources from which the impacts of
well-being can be calculated based on the models summarized in
Table 1. The data collection step is followed by the normalization of the
data, after which the variability in the patterns of the layers is examined
by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Based on similarities between
the patterns, the level of abstraction of the given city is chosen and then
the layers of the composite indicator of the objective well-being level are
produced as the weighted outputs of the models.
2.1. Models and data sources used for the calculation of the components
of well-being
One of the main objectives of developing this composite indicator
was to provide an analytical tool to achieve a deeper understanding of
sustainable and resilient urban planning (especially SDG3 “good health
and well-being”). Therefore, the data sources were chosen to make the
proposed OWL composite indicator easy to calculate for any city
worldwide. In other words, objective elements of well-being are
modeled and evaluated, which are related to the quality of life. The
V. Sebestyén et al. Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460

Fig. 1. Workflow of the objective well-being level (OWL) calculation.

Table 1
The models related to objective well-being in OWL methodology.
No. Abbr. Parameter Equations References Category

1. dw Daily-needs walkability p1 ⋅d2 − p2 ⋅d + p3 (Frank et al., 2021; Lamb and Steinberger, 2022) Walk.
2. pw Park walkability p1 ⋅d5 − p2 ⋅d4 + p3 ⋅d3 − p4 ⋅d2 + p5 ⋅d + p6 (Lamb and Steinberger, 2022) Walk.
3. rw Religious walkability p1 ⋅d2 − p2 ⋅d + p3 (Frank et al., 2021) Walk.
4. tn Traffic noise Lw + Dc − A (ISO, 1996; Chung et al., 2017; Sari et al., 2014; Barceló Villalobos, 2009);
(To and Chung, 2015; Farouq and Ahonsi, 2018; Kemp et al., 2013) Env.
5. pn Point-source noise Lw + Dc − A (ISO, 1996); Env.
6. np NOX p1 + p2 ⋅BEX + p3 ⋅TL50 + p4 ⋅POP1000
+ p5 ⋅HTL500 + p6 ⋅IDM + p7 ⋅MRL25 (Schmitz et al., 2019) Env.
7. pp PM10 p1 + p2 ⋅TML500 + p3 ⋅POP5000 + p4 ⋅MRL50 (Schmitz et al., 2019) Env.
8. op Ground-level O3 p1 + p2 ⋅T (Trájer et al., 2019; Trájer et al., 2022) Env.
9. vc Vegetation cover ( NDVI − NDVI )2 (Avdan and Jovanovska, 2016) Env.
s
NDVIv − NDVIs
10. tm Total heat-related p1 − p2 ⋅T + p3 ⋅T2 − p4 ⋅T3 + p5 ⋅T4 (Chen et al., 2018) Health
mortality
11. hr Heart rate changes p1 ⋅T4 − p2 ⋅T3 − p3 ⋅T2 + p4 ⋅T + p5 (Madaniyazi et al., 2016) Health
12. aa Airborne aspergillus p1 ⋅T − p2 (Alshareef and Robson, 2014) Health
13. ar Asthma risk p1 ⋅T5 − p2 ⋅T4 + p3 ⋅T3 − p4 ⋅T2 + p5 ⋅T + p6 (Lam et al., 2016) Health
14. md Mood disorders (MDs) p1 ⋅T3 + p2 ⋅T2 − p3 ⋅T + p4 (Niu et al., 2020) Health
15. pd Population density Aj (Domokos et al., 2022) Soc.
s
16. bd Building density 1 − |d| Soc.
17. pr Productivity p1 ⋅T3 − p2 ⋅T2 + p3 ⋅T + p4 (Zhang et al., 2018) Soc.
18. dr Dirofilariasis e− 0.003⋅d (Trájer et al., 2016) Soc.
19. er Stormwater erosion risk [( ∂Z )2 ( ∂Z )2 ]1/2 (Prodanović et al., 2009) Clim.
+
∂X ∂Y
20. hw Heat wave 1 n ⃒
∑ ⃒ ⃒ (Viceto et al., 2019) Clim.
Tday;tres − Tmax;hi ⃒
n i=1
21. eh Extreme hot days 1∑n ⃒⃒ ⃒ (Viceto et al., 2019) Clim.
T
i=1 day;tres
− Tmax;hi ⃒
n ̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
√ ̅
22. fs Fire safety (Masoumi et al., 2019; Domokos et al., 2022) Safety
|Δx|2 + |Δy|2
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
23. as Ambulance service (Masoumi et al., 2019; Domokos et al., 2022) Safety
|Δx|2 + |Δy|2
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
24. ps Police force (Masoumi et al., 2019; Domokos et al., 2022) Safety
|Δx|2 + |Δy|2

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V. Sebestyén et al. Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460

development of this means the improvement of resilience and sustain­
ability aspects of cities, which can be supported by our proposed OWL
methodological development. Well-being, resilience and sustainability
are strongly interrelated issues whose data-based decision support re­
quires multidisciplinary approaches, for which the OWL composite in­
dicator could be a promising framework.
The model parameters presented in Table 1 and the level of
abstraction (number of principal components) can be fine-tuned by
analysts. Given that the collected models cover six categories to describe
well-being, the method fills in long-term unresolved gaps in strategic
planning for “sustainable cities and communities” (SDG11).
The evaluation of the objective part of well-being requires the choice
of indicators related to the quality of life, which means a multidisci­
plinary selection, keeping in mind that the chosen indicators have to be
calculated for the entire area of the analyzed settlement to explore the
intra-city patterns. The proposed OWL methodology performs an inno­
vative integration of the related models published in the scientific
literature, so all published models were used that are available and
suitable for deriving high-resolution patterns in terms of well-being.
In Table 1, the well-being models identified by public data published
in the scientific literature are classified into six categories, that is,
walkability as described by 3 models, the environment by 6, health by 5,
social change by 3 as well as climate change and safety which are out­
lined by 3 each.
The models in Table 1 can be identified by using the data sources of
Table 2 according to the following principles:
• The walkability of daily needs is calculated based on the POI data­
base from the distance to shops, bakeries, convenience stores,
pharmacies, restaurants, pubs and other related categories.
• In the case of park walkability, the distance to parks and forests is
taken into account, while churches, cathedrals, parishes and me­
morial sites are used to calculate religious walkability.
• To calculate traffic noise, the road network is used, which contains
the permitted speed data. The traffic data could be matched to this,
enabling sound propagation models to be calculated with a high
degree of accuracy when divided according to acoustic vehicle cat­
egories. In the case of point source noise, the sound power level was
determined based on the measurement data in the literature and our
many years of experience of measuring noise. The calculations are
performed using the IMMI modeling software according to interna­
tional noise control engineering standards.
• The nitrogen oxides (NOX ) and particulate matter (PM10 ) pollution
can be estimated by monitoring data based on the regional back­
ground air quality, road network topology and traffic data.
Table 2
Used data sources and attributes.
Name Data source Description Geometry/
Type
Roads and OpenStreetMap (OSM) Five categories of Line
sidewalks roads and sidewalks
POI database OpenStreetMap (OSM) Polygons converted Point
into points (centroid (polygon)
method)
Buildings OpenStreetMap (OSM) Building types and Polygon
areas
Parks Corine (Copernicus) Corine database Polygon
and OpenStreetMap refined by OSM
• The heat-related indicators (ground-level ozone, total heat-related
mortality, heart rate changes, airborne aspergillus, asthma, mood
disorders, productivity, heat waves and extremely hot days) are
based on the urban heat island model, which can be calculated based
on satellite images and surface temperature monitoring data. Vege­
tation coverage can also be determined based on satellite images.
• Building density can be analyzed by calculating the distances be­
tween buildings. The population density can be estimated by taking
into account the floor space of the buildings and their numbers of
floors as well as knowing the types of the buildings and the popu­
lation of the city as normalization factors.
• Dirofilariasis can be diagnosed from the distance to surface water
bodies, namely bodies of standing water and streams.
• Since the stormwater erosion risk can be examined by applying the
Digital Elevation Model and neglecting the sinks, e.g. sewer network
topology, it is a stormwater-related phenomenon but can not be
comprehensively characterized.
• The analysis of the fire safety, ambulance service and police force can
be characterized by calculating the arrival times from their respec­
tive stations to each junction in the road network according to al­
gorithms that identify the shortest paths (based on a developed
MATLAB code).
The data sources required to calculate the model parameters
described in Table 1 are listed in Table 2. Table 2 shows that the models
of the OWL indicators are produced using widely available map data
sources according to Table 1. Based on this, urban well-being is esti­
mated from the situation of different infrastructural elements, such as
buildings, road network, POIs, parks, water bodies, which is enriched by
processing satellite images and elevation as supporting sources of in­
formation. The proposed OWL methodology integrates point-, line- and
polygon (area) data sources, thereby providing an informative and
generally applicable methodological development in the assessment and
optimization of the well-being of cities, as it provides information for the
entire area of the analyzed settlements. It may happen that certain
infrastructural elements (e.g. parks) are not freely accessible, these are
not taken into account by the proposed method. Accessibility can be an
interesting development direction that can be supported by the inte­
gration of mobility databases (Tiziana et al., 2023).
2.2. Calculation of the OWL composite indicator
Based on the published models, a composite indicator system is
proposed whereby it is much easier to track and study one or three
variables than to identify common trends across many separate in­
dicators. These composite indicators should represent multidimensional
concepts which cannot be captured by a single model or variable. The
indicator system is multi-level as the variables are categories belonging
to the previously presented thematic groups (Fig. A1).
Given that the variables should be aggregated and weighted to
compensate for their correlation, multivariate analysis should be used to
study the overall structure of the dataset and identify groups of variables
that are statistically similar.
In our work, Principal Component Analysis and, more specifically,
Factor Analysis were used to form composite indicators that capture as
comprehensively as possible the information common to individual
models, therefore, the resulting OWL composite indicators are repre­
sented as a linearly weighted aggregation of the original models:
∑
n

Water bodies OpenStreetMap (OSM) Stagnant water bodies Line and OWLi = NI j ⋅wi,j (1)
and streams Polygon
j=1

Satellite Landsat 8–9 Level 2 dataset GeoTIFF

images raster where the parameters wi,j of each factor were estimated using Principal
Digital NASA EarthExplorer 50 m resolution GeoTIFF Component Analysis (PCA). It is important to note that although these
Elevation raster weights do not measure the importance of the associated indicators,
Model
according to PCA, the weighting corrects for duplicate pattern between

5
V. Sebestyén et al.
the variables. Principal Component Analysis is widely used to analyze
climatic data (Bueso et al., 2020), select effective series for modeling
(Nourali, 2023) and dimension reduction of highly correlated data
(Kherif and Latypova, 2020).
The number of composite indicators is determined by analysing the
principal components. Only a subset of principal components is retained
i = 1, …, m. Solely indicators that contribute individually to the expla­
nation of overall variance in excess of 10% and cumulatively to account
for the overall variance in excess of 60% were considered to have
participated in the composite indicator system. The applicability of the
PCA in constructing a well-being composite index was successfully
presented in Italian provinces (Mazziotta and Pareto, 2019).
The varimax rotation is used to minimise the number of individual
indicators that have a high loading on the same factor, an ideal indicator
system in which each variable is loaded exclusively on one of the
retained factors is sought. The varimax rotation was successfully applied
to explore the relationships between the factors of well-being at work
(Husky et al., 2020). In the case of urban well-being, PCA is a measure of
the spatial similarity of the modeled indicators. In other words, PCA is
used for information redundancy reduction and indicator relevance
determination (Xiao et al., 2021).
Since 24 independently interpretable models have been integrated
into the proposed OWL methodology, which are calculated based on the
same data sources in several cases, it is important that the repeating
patterns do not distort the results of the comprehensive analysis. In other
words, in the OWL composite indicator method developed, the redun­
dant information is neglected, so the potential intervention sites for
urban development can be clearly defined, which supports the strategic
decisions necessary for sustainable and resilient cities. For example, the
indicators of the health category are mainly driven by temperature, so
their urban patterns are also similar (Fig. 5), so this pattern similarity
must be taken into account during the formation of the OWL composite
indicator, if we would like to avoid the overestimated importance of
repeatedly used data sources in the final composite indicators.
3. Results
3.1. Case-study area
The study was performed in Veszprém (Fig. 2), which is the county
Fig. 2. The modeled urban area of Veszprém, the used macrostructural elements along with their total numbers of features.
6
Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460
seat of Veszprém county in Central Transdanubia, Hungary (Lenner,
2012). The urban area of the city is 126.9 km2 and the resident popu­
lation about 60,000 individuals. The city can be found at the northern
edge of the dolomite karst plateau in the Balaton Highlands to as far,
south as the foothills of the Northern Bakony Mts. in about 260–270 m a.
s.l. The macrostructure of the total number of features found in the city
is presented in Fig. 2:
3.2. Raw impacts of OWL
In this subsection, the modeled values of the indicator parameters
used to determine the objective well-being level (OWL) are presented in
the form of categories, walkability, the environment, health, society,
climate and safety, as is presented in Table 1 as well as applied in the
models. The spatial distribution of the modeled indicators was plotted in
a normalized and unweighted form in order to show the differences in
the urban patterns of well-being.
The intra-city pattern of the three indicators in the walkability
category is illustrated in Fig. 3:
In Fig. 3, daily needs walkability (dw ) is based on the distance be­
tween the objects visited on a daily basis, including grocery stores,
pharmacies, restaurants, pubs and playgrounds. The pedestrian acces­
sibility in order to meet the daily needs of subsistence is usually the
greatest in the city centers, as is the case in Veszprém. In contrast, due to
the built-up area, the availability of green spaces and parks (pw ) is
usually limited in city centers, which is especially true in Veszprém, as
shown in the second map of Fig. 3. The third map in Fig. 3 shows the
pedestrian accessibility of religious walkability (rw ) in the study area,
which is highest close to downtown but not completely concentrated
there.
Overview maps of environmental indicators are shown in Fig. 4. Six
indicators are found in this category that are very important with regard
to objective well-being. Environmental factors, as expected from the
heterogeneity of input values, exhibit very diverse spatial patterns. It
can be said that point-source noise pollution, for example, is at its
maxima in city center, while other forms, like air pollution or the at­
mospheric ozone concentration are rather in line with the distribution of
the densely built-up parts of the city. The indirect effect of the topog­
raphy on these values is also visible, namely the well-being-related
factors are generally higher in the less densely populated area in the
V. Sebestyén et al. Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460

Fig. 3. Modeled distribution of indicators belonging to the walkability category (dw denotes daily needs walkability, pw stands for park walkability and rw refers to
religious walkability). The dark blue indicates areas of higher levels of well-being, while lower levels are depicted in green.

Fig. 4. Modeled distribution of indicators belonging to the environmental category (tn denotes the traffic noise, pn stands for point-noise sources, np refers to NOX
pollution, pp represents particulate matter (PM10 ), op shows the ground-level ozone pollution and vc is vegetation cover). The dark blue indicates areas of higher well-
being, while lower ones are depicted in green.

vicinity of the valley north of the city centre. This pattern with regard to
the macrostructure of the city is clearly visible in the modeled values of
NOX pollution and in terms of the vegetation cover, because the mini­
mum values of vc are determined by the industrial area.
The patterns with regard to the health category are shown in Fig. 5:
In the case of the indicators in the health category, the effect of the
natural green spaces linked to the steep topography of the central valley
of the ’Séd’ stream is characteristic, as can be seen in Fig. 5. In general,
the industrial region in the northwest part of the city exhibits the lowest
well-being-related indicator values. The modeled factors of the health
category are also a classic peripheral gradient, in fact this trend can only
be seen in the peripheral areas. The suburbs of the city do not exhibit
notably different values compared to downtown.
The purpose of the society category is to collect and present the most

7
V. Sebestyén et al.
Fig. 5. Modeled distribution of indicators belonging to the health category (tm denotes total heat-related mortality, hr stands for heart-rate changes, aa refers to
airborne aspergillus, ar represents asthma risk and md is mood disorders). The dark blue indicates areas of higher well-being, while lower ones are depicted in green.
subjective elements of objective well-being level (OWL), as illustrated in
Fig. 6:
The society category-associated well-being factors present a strongly
heterogeneous picture. Although the building density (bd ) is the highest
in the pericentral regions, this is not the case at the definitive geomet­
rical centre. The change in outdoor productivity shows value pattern
based on the building density. The relative risk of dirofilariasis oexhibits
a specific character which is a consequence of the distribution of the
freshwater habitats in the western-central and northeastern parts of the
city. However, it is notable how deeply the areas with a higher risk of
dirofilariasis penetrate into the central parts of the settlement.
Even though the modeled factors of the climate category presented in
Fig. 7 show a nearly city-center-focused maximum pattern, the values
are more closely related to the building density, green spaces and forest
cover than to the absolute geometrical conditions of the studied settle­
ment. Generally, in the suburbs, the modeled values are lower than
downtown, which is also true for the central valley and outskirts of
downtown where the proportion of green spaces are the highest. The
worst values can be seen in the industrial estate in the northwest area of
the city (see Fig. 8).
The safety categories related to the availability of the police force,
ambulance service and fire department show very similar patterns due
to the spatial proximity of the stations to each other. Apart from the
individual differences, the shapes of the availability patterns are similar
and seem to be less affected by the local topographical factors. It can be
said that these services are the most accessible in the southern parts of
the city and less in the suburbs. In the case of the fire department, the
population of the western part of the city reside in the best location. In
general, these services are the closest to the western and southern lo­
cations of the city but furthest from the northeastern districts and
8
Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460
suburbs. Therefore, the emergency response (departure) time is the
highest in these cases.
3.3. OWL
The objective well-being level composite indicator integrates the
results of the 24 models, based on which the implementation sites of
urban development plans can be accurately identified in the decision
making process. The redundancy of the patterns of the different in­
dicators is reduced during aggregation using the PCA technique.
Depending on how diverse the patterns of the examined indicators are,
the OWL method allows for customization of the number of composite
indicators. In this representation, the objective well-being level of city of
Veszprém can be described by two composite indicators (Figs. 9 & 10.),
in which the values are weighted by PCA coordinates (Fig. A2) during
aggregation. The distribution of the model parameters in two-
dimensional abstraction space appears along two main axes. Although
some of the factors can be traced back to differences in the natural and
built environments, they are also influenced by a number of local fac­
tors. Such is the local characteristic that the deep stream valley which
crosses the city has remained a sparsely built-up area and that no
buildings have been built on some of the steep slopes that border this
valley. Therefore, relief, as a primarily negative factor in terms of well-
being, appears associated with for example, parks, moreover a number
of the positive psychological, physical and energetic effects of which are
known. The first principal component includes temperature-controlled
indicators such as aa , op , pr , md , etc. Plant cover vc , dirofilariasis
dr related to the proximity to water bodies and NOX form the other group
(Fig. A2), which can be traced back to the macrostructure of natural
sites. Two groups can also be identified as a result of this division
V. Sebestyén et al.
Fig. 6. Modeled distribution of indicators belonging to the society category (pd
denotes population density, bd stands for building density, pr refers to the
change in outdoor productivity, dr represents the relative risk of dirofilariasis).
The dark blue indicates areas of higher well-being, while lower ones are
depicted in green.
according to the second principal component. Parameters specific to city
centers e.g. daily-needs and religious walkabilities, population density
and point source noise and the structure of the peripheral districts, e.g.
the time of arrival of firefighters, paramedics and police officers as well
as the availability of parks can be identified in the principal components
and also differ in the OWL composite indicators.
The first characteristic pattern of the objective well-being level
composite indicator in Veszprém is shown in detail in Fig. 9. This
composite indicator is dominated by the patterns of health and envi­
ronmental indicators, moreover, it follows that the patterns of the Séd
Valley (area of maximum objective well-being level) are visible on the
industrial area and downtown (minimum well-being level areas) return
in the aggregated map. It follows that the set of variables determined by
the natural macrostructure of the proposed objective well-being level
Fig. 7. Modeled distribution of indicators belonging to the climate category (er denotes stormwater erosion risk, hw stands for heat waves, and eh refers to extremly
hot days). The dark blue indicates areas of higher well-being, while lower ones are depicted in green.
9
Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460
(OWL) composite indicator is one of the main determinants. As shown in
Fig. 9, the best quality locations of OWL1 are located in areas where
green infrastructure is dominant, thus showing a better quality of the
natural environment. A typical example of this is the Séd valley, also
marked in the Fig. 9, and the area around the zoo in Veszprém. The other
highly represented group of the indicators related to health, which show
a high correlation with the vegetation cover and its resulting microcli­
mate cooling effect. In this composite indicator, the reachability-related
indicators (walkability & safety) appear with minimal weights. Related
to this, the second composite indicator reveals availability-related
characteristics, which are described in detail in Fig. 10. According to
OWL1 a natural restoration of the detached house area, industrial area
and downtown can be recommended, which includes developments
with green and blue infrastructural elements and implementation of
nature-based solutions.
The second spatial representation of a group of factors shows the
classical city-center-shaped radial pattern. The availability of the main
services, namely the fire department, ambulance service, police force
and churches amongst others which are predominant can be found near
to the city center.
Since the pattern on the map in Fig. 10 is dominated by indicators
belonging to the safety and walkability categories, the best objective
well-being levels are found in the vicinity of downtown. As shown in
Fig. 10, the best quality locations of OWL2 are located in areas where the
built infrastructure is present in high diversity. A typical example of this
is the city center and the area of detached houses, as marked in the
Fig. 10. OWL2 contains the indicators of the walkability and safety
categories with a high weight, while the indicators of health and climate
are represented with a lower weight. According to OWL2 the enrichment
of the infrastructural elements of suburban areas is recommended,
which must be implemented in accordance with OWL1 with the pro­
tection of natural values.
In general, it can be stated that the well-being patterns shown in
Figs. 9 and 10 show the importance of aspects concerning the applica­
tion of sustainable urban planning and development, as the socio­
ecological well-being can be linked to the coverage of their convenience
needs, which are primarily highest in the inner-city areas, while noise
and health-related aspects as well as air quality show worse patterns of
well-being levels in these areas of Veszprém. When implementing the
locations of nature-based solutions as well as climate change adaptation
and mitigation actions, it is necessary to take into account the co-
benefits demonstrated in the form of well-being, so in the case of the
city of Veszprém, making the areas near to the city center more natural
and increasing the coverage of peripheral areas by introducing services
would represent possibilities for increasing the objective well-being
V. Sebestyén et al. Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460

Fig. 8. Modeled distribution of indicators belonging to the safety category (fs denotes the fire department, as stands for the ambulance service, and ps refers to the
police force). The dark blue indicates areas of higher well-being, while lower ones are depicted in green.

Fig. 9. Visualization of the first composite indicator of the objective well-being level (OWL) in Veszprém.

Fig. 10. Visualization of the second composite indicator of the objective well-being level (OWL) in Veszprém.

10
V. Sebestyén et al.
level of the city. An interesting future research direction is the quanti­
fication of the impacts of various climate actions as well as urban stra­
tegies and interventions on well-being by extending the objective well-
being level (OWL) methodology presented.
The proposed methodology, and its special weighting approach by
choosing the level of abstraction by the analyst, allows the factors
influencing the objective well-being level in cities to be better under­
stood as aggregation in a single layer implies a significant reduction in
information content. It should be added that the different macrostruc­
tures of other cities may require the implementation of additional OWL
dimensions, however, this is chosen by the analyst during Principal
Component Analysis and aggregation.
4. Discussion
The model results revealed the complex macrostructure of the city
related to the social, economic and environmental-related dimensions of
well-being. The applied approach, which was based on the modelling of
aggregated meso-scale patterns is in accordance with the modern theory
of the objectification of well-being (Dong et al., 2020) by which of
composite indicators are applied to achieve this quantification (Com­
mission et al., 2008). It can also be seen that the factors of well-being are
also the points of intervention of the sustainable development goals
(SDGs) that contribute to the development of innovative evaluation in­
dicators as well which can help a city progress to move toward urban
sustainability (Geng et al., 2016). However, the theoretical contradic­
tion between sustainability targets and human well-being-related mo­
tivations should also be emphasized, not only on a practical level, but
also in terms of indicators. In other words, several human well-being
indicators ignore sustainability, and vice versa, in fact the majority of
the sustainability indicators ignore the aspects of well-being (Neumayer,
2007). The social-group-determinant nature of the well-being-related
motivations is also should be mentioned. The categories of age, gender
and extroversion strongly influence the attitude and motivatability of
the individuals (Munzel et al., 2018).
Even though it can be seen that the individual maps are highly het­
erogeneous, some characteristic groups can be determined. One group of
variables, namely the thermal-related ones, traffic-related factors (e.g.
noise) and population density, are focused on the city center near
circular-shaped patterns. Incidentally, sound intensity and the urban
heat island effect are typically focused on the spatial patterns of city
centers (Margaritis and Kang, 2017). Others, e.g. accessibility to the fire
department and healthcare services, exhibit additional city center-based
concentric gradient patterns. Certain values, like the potential occur­
rence of canine dirofilariasis, urban green spaces or flooding based on
the relief have nearly non-circular/irregular spatial occurrences. It
should be noted that since urban flooding and its level is highly uncer­
tain, its exact possible course and cases of different degrees of severity
were not subject to modeling (Li and Willems, 2020). The heterogeneity
of the modeled factors shows that the overall values of those concerning
human well-being follow individual patterns in different parts of the
city. It is common to make a distinction between human and techno-
economic factors in a narrower sense. For example, according to the
concept of Barton (2016), the first part of the testable factors consists of
obesity, unhealthy lifestyles, inequality and mental illness, although
climate change and environmental quality was also included in this
group of factors (Barton, 2016). The second part of the considered fac­
tors consists of transport, housing, economic, social and energy policies,
the classification of which also indicate that the technological-
environmental and human factors clearly cannot be divided in an
urban environment. In our study, two groups of factors can not be
clearly differentiated since several human factors were derived from
natural, physical factors. However, estimations using land use regression
modeling, e.g. of urban air pollution (Muttoo et al., 2018) or heat-
related mortality (Son et al., 2016), are commonly accepted and used
methods today, indicating that making a rigorous distinction between
11
Ecological Indicators 158 (2024) 111460
physical structures and environmental-human factors is a simply di­
dactic and outdated approach.
It is worth examining the validity of urban well-being models from
the perspective of models of coupled human-environment systems
(Turner et al., 2003). These models claim that three main ’players’ are
involved: the complex natural system from the level of particulate
matter to biomes, the complex human systems in which humans serve as
’decision-making bodies’ and a mediating element. The most important
factors of the human component are access, influence, interest and
motivation. In terms of the sustainability of the urban environment, the
role of the third, namely the mediating element, which creates a
connection between the two systems is crucial. The essence of this third
factor is that based on the information obtained from the natural system,
decisions are made by passing through the economic, political and social
filters, which necessitate human intervention with regard to the envi­
ronmental system. This coupled human–environment system approach
showed that the vulnerability of urban environments exhibits special,
regional characteristics which are typical of the climate and sociocul­
tural environment (Srinivasan et al., 2013). It can be concluded that the
available studies concerning this complex topic are rather conceptual in
nature (e.g. (Krefis et al., 2018)) and the synthesis of the different
environmental-socioeconomic and even emotional factors have not yet
been comprehensively addressed in the literature.
An important outcome of this study is that the macro-patterns of the
well-being-related factors can be tight regarding main structural com­
ponents of which only one shows a city center-based central image, the
others are mainly related to the main routes through the city and indi­
rectly to the topography. The pattern of the first factor is not surprising
since it is known that the central urban district dominates in terms of the
urban structure (He et al., 2019). On the other hand, the city center is
generally connected to the surrounding decentralized structure (Man­
ganelli et al., 2020) - including the suburbs and the outer industrial
estates - through urban facilities resulting in a near-concentric shape in
terms of the accessibility of the different services, workplaces,
sociocultural-socioeconomic ’point of interest’ and other city compo­
nents (Gao et al., 2013). The second factor is fundamentally determined
by the regional and local topographical factors. The topography not only
influenced the evolution of the settlement and road structure but also
the development of the patterns of spontaneous and anthropogenic plant
communities in terms of their shape (Qian et al., 2020) which form the
core of the urban green spaces nowadays.
There are many approaches to evaluating and ranking cities in terms
of well-being, namely quality of life indices (QoLI) (Moro et al., 2008),
sustainability assessment by fuzzy evaluation (SAFE) (Phillis et al.,
2017), Economic Well-Being (EWB) index (Ehrlich et al., 2021), quality
of urban life (QOUL) (Goerlich and Reig, 2021) but in this research, the
goal was to explore the patterns within the city, so it is not suitable for
comparing cities with each other. It is also important to emphasize that
the proposed OWL methodology does not take into account the subjec­
tive elements of well-being, such as the differences between different
user groups. Surveying the population’s well-being preferences and
sorting them into user groups can contribute to even more detailed
planning. Another promising development opportunity is that the OWL
results can be connected with the One Health approach, which also re­
quires the identification of the requirements of the various actors.
5. Conclusion
The results indicate that the mapping of well-being-related factors
based on the local relief, climatic, urban structural as well as various
other natural and anthropogenic factors is reasonable. It can provide a
unique and complex approach to better understand human preferences
and supports the formulation of urban sustainability strategies. The
revealed patterns suggest that the habitability of a city cannot simply be
down to it being a city center or rural in nature, on the other hand, due to
the involvement of heterogeneous environmental, socioeconomic and
V. Sebestyén et al.
cultural factors, a complex picture is presented. The developed objective
well-being level (OWL) method is suitable for assessing positive and
negative impacts simultaneously. A composite indicator of well-being
has been developed to facilitate well-being-based decision support and
urban planning based on the proposed variables. The objective well-
being level methodology is the first comprehensive analysis tool
enabling cities to explore “health and well-being (SDG3)” points of
intervention and potential areas for strategic implementation. In
Veszprém a natural restoration of the detached house area, industrial
area and downtown is recommended including developments with
green and blue infrastructural elements and the implementation of
nature-based solutions. In peripheral areas, it is recommended to in­
crease the diversity of infrastructure and services while preserving
natural values.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Viktor Sebestyén: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing -
original draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization. Attila János
Trájer: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investiga­
tion, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Endre Domokos: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal
analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - review & editing,
Visualization. András Torma: Conceptualization, Validation, Re­
sources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review &
editing. János Abonyi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
Investigation, Resources, Writing - original draft, Visualization, Super­
vision, Funding acquisition, Project administration.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
Funding provided by the RRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00014 National Multi­
disciplinary Laboratory for Climate Change.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the
online version, athttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.111460.
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