A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1979

Methodologies and theoretical bases in environmental quality indices were reviewed. ·A system of finding an environmental quality index for a nation was developed. Air, water, solid waste, noise, population density, soil and forest are considered as the elements of environmental quality. Pindex was used to find air index. DELPHI method was used to find water index. Formulae developed by the author were used in finding other indices. Relative importance of the elements of environmental quality were obtained by questionnaire. Taiwan was used as a case study in illustrating the use of index. A high score of air quality because of the enforcement of law and a low score of noise were observed. An index value of 65.69 was obtained for the level of environmental quality in Taiwan for the year 1976. Factor analysis as an approach to find environmental quality indices was also developed. Several data matrices were used for the analysis. Factor loadings obtained were discussed. The correlation between Pindex index and the index from factor analysis were very high. For water and solid waste, more data matrix still would be needed to test the approach, but preliminary conclusions were obtained. Limitation of the approach developed in this thesis were noted and future studies related to the present research were recommended.