5. A Preliminary Comparative Study on Subtropical Ecological Community Indicators: EEWH-EC

Rapid urban sprawl and resource exploitation have led to unprecedented challenges to the global environment. An ecological community, which is the integration of architecture, ecology, and society, includes various aspects such as people, construction, the environment, and overall development. The interdisciplinary integration of ecological cogitation and technology reflects harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and also becomes a development model for future sustainable settlement. In 2011, a green building ecological community assessment system, EEWH-EC (Ecology, Energy Saving, Waste Reduction, Health: Eco-communities), for subtropical regions, was promulgated in Taiwan. In this work, the ecological assessment systems used in the UK, the USA, Germany, Japan, and China are reviewed. The categories, items, content, evaluation criteria, and weightings of these assessment systems are studied and analyzed. The results show that the EEWH-EC indicators give more emphasis to ecology and to the living and natural environments. The weightings of the indicators have not been developed yet, therefore the degree of importance of each category and item cannot be determined. With the ecological community indicators established by different countries, social, economic, and humanistic indicators can be strengthened. With reference to the established international eco-community assessment systems, it will be more favorable for the overall development of ecological communities to formulate assessment systems better suited to subtropical regions.