Ecologically adjusted human development index

The article offeres an approach to including ecological factor in the Human Development Index (HDI). HDI is aimed at reflecting the quality of life of population, which is defined along with other important characteristics and state of environment. However, there is still no ecological living conditions of population in the formalized representation of HDI. Two directions of constructing ecologically adjusted HDI are developed: introducing ecological index to HDR, and using ecologically adjusted GDP/GRP in income index. Ecological index reflecting the state of environment in the places of residence and recreation of population is constructed on the basis of indicators of the number of air/water samples exceeding the ambient standards, as a percentage of the total number of examined samples. This indicator is presented in the annex to the statistical handbook «Environment Protection in Russia» for all regions. It is offered to modify the index of income in HDI by subtraction of the economic damage caused by pollution from income, as this part of income does not go to growth of the population welfare, but only compensates for the damage. For implementation of this approach there is no official statistics, and in the study was used the database accumulated by the author over many years of ecological-economic research. As a result, there was calculated ecologically adjusted HDI for all 85 regions in comparison with the traditional HDI. In 14 regions with the best ecological situation the HDI value grew, in the others it decreased. Some of the regions formerly leading by the HDI value lost their positions. Comparing the impact on HDI of ecological index on the one hand, and of modifications of income index on the other, showed an incomparably greater role of the introduction of ecological index.