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Sustainability perception can be understood as humans' awareness of the environment. This study assessed the sustainability perception of the Paraná III Basin residents in Brazil through item response theory (IRT). For this purpose, a scale to measure sustainability perception, in which the items and latent features of respondents in the same unit of measurement are positioned, was constructed. Fifty-two items (sustainability indicators) evaluated through structured questionnaires applied to 2519 respondents, residents of three cities in the study area, were created. The results indicated that 52.3% of respondents have no, very low or low perception of sustainability, and the study population was allocated between levels 90 and 100 of the perception scale. IRT was suitable for the data analysis because it enabled quality evaluation of the items, construction of a scale to quantify sustainability perception and identification of perception levels. The developed tool - the measurement scale for sustainability perception - can be used by those responsible for local environmental governance to develop projects aimed at social and environmental education with the goal of identifying alternatives to raise the perception levels of the local residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]