Sustainable Rural Development is essential to maintain active local communities and avoid depopulation and degradation of rural areas. Proper assessment of development in these territories is necessary to improve decision-making and to inform public policy, while ensuring biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services supply. Rural areas include high ecological value systems but the vulnerability of environmental components in development indicators has not been sufficiently pinpointed. The main objective of this work was to propose a new sustainable rural development composite indicator (nSRDI) while considering an environmental dimension indicator based on ecosystem services vulnerability and social and economic dimension indicators established using a sequentially Benefit of the Doubt-Data Envelopment Analysis (BoD-DEA) model. It aimed also to test effects of weighting methods on nSRDI. The composite indicator was applied to 10 regions (comarcas) in the Huesca province, Spain, producing a ranking of regions accordingly. The indicator was further tested through the analysis of the effect of an equal and optimum weighting method on scores and rankings of regions. Results showed substantial differences in nSRDI scores/rankings when vulnerability was added to the process, suggesting that the environmental dimension and the perspective from which it is conceived and applied matters when addressing sustainable rural development.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the application of Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approaches exclusively to water-related freshwater ecosystem services. MCDM analysis has been useful in solving conflicts and it works well in this framework, given the serious conflicts historically associated with water use and the protection of freshwater ecosystems around the world. In this study, we present a review of 150 papers that proposed the use of MCDM-based methods for the social, economic, or ecological planning and management of water ecosystem services over the period 2000–2020. The analysis accounts for six elements: ecosystem service type, method, participation, biogeographical realm, waterbody type, and problem to solve. A Chi-square test was used to identify dependence between these elements. Studies involving the participation of stakeholder groups adopted an integrated approach to analysing sustainable water management, considering provisioning, regulating, and cultural services. However, such studies have been in decline since 2015, in favour of non-participatory studies that were strictly focused on ecological and provisioning issues. Although this reflects greater concern for the health of freshwater ecosystems, it is a long way removed from the essence of ecosystem services, which entails an integrated approach to the interrelationships between hydrology, landscapes, ecology, and humans.

Enhancing social and economic development while preserving nature is one of the most significant challenges for humankind in the current century

The use of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) represents a major change in corporate sustainability reporting, particularly through the formalisation of the double materiality principle. Despite its regulatory relevance, empirical evidence on how organisations disclose double materiality remains limited, especially during the first reporting cycle. This study provides early empirical indicative evidence on the application of double materiality in disclosure following the initial ESRS reporting. It examines how leading European water-sector companies and environmental service providers with urban water activities integrated this approach into their 2024 sustainability disclosures. A mixed-methods design is applied, combining qualitative content analysis with descriptive quantitative checks of sustainability, ESG, and integrated reports. The disclosed material topics are assessed against the ESRS thematic framework. The findings indicate a strong convergence on the key environmental issues reported, notably climate change, water management, and circular economy-disclosed practices, including companies not yet fully subject to ESRS requirements. In contrast, social and governance disclosures suggest greater heterogeneity. Overall, the results suggest that broader material coverage does not necessarily imply higher information quality, as this reflects the breadth of disclosure rather than its quality, reinforcing double materiality as a sector-driven prioritisation mechanism.