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The community is the basic unit of urban development, and appropriate assessment tools are needed for communities to evaluate and facilitate decision making concerning sustainable community development and reduce the detrimental effects of urban community actions on the environment. Existing research into sustainable community rating tools focuses primarily on those that are internationally recognized to describe their advantages and future challenges. However, the differences between rating tools due to different regional conditions, situations and characteristics have yet to be addressed. In doing this, this paper examines three sustainable community rating tools in Australia, namely Green Star-Communities PILOT, EnviroDevelopment and VicUrban Sustainability Charter (Master Planned Community Assessment Tool). In order to identify their similarities, differences and advantages these are compared in terms of sustainability coverage, prerequisites, adaptation to locality, scoring and weighting, participation, presentation of results, and application process. These results provide the stakeholders of sustainable community development projects with a better understanding of the available rating tools in Australia and assist with evaluation and decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catchment/floodplain sediment geochemical datasets from three continental-scale geochemical projects in Australia (AU), China (CH) and Europe (EU) were studied by comparing sample media, sample preparation, elements determined, analytical methods, detection limits and proportions of reportable values, and certified reference materials used. Twenty six elements (Ba, Ce, Co, Cr, Cu, Mo, Nb, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sr, Th, V, Y, Zn, Zr, Al 2 O 3 , CaO, K 2 O, MgO, MnO, Na 2 O, P 2 O 5 , SiO 2 , Fe 2 O 3 (total), TiO 2 ) were considered comparable among the 35 determined by all three projects, according to the criteria for global comparability of elements proposed in this paper. The median concentrations of all elements (except Co, Y, Zr, SiO 2 and TiO 2 ) in the three datasets increase in the following order: AU < EU ≤ CH, and the median CH/EU ratios for all elements range from 0.98 to 1.94, while the median CH/AU and EU/AU ratios for elements, such as CaO, Na 2 O, MgO and Zn are generally greater than 2 (and up to 7), which could be explained partly by protracted weathering in Australia, and partly by the smaller grain size fraction analysed of the CH dataset (< 1 mm) compared to AU and EU (< 2 mm). In conclusion, a unified sample medium should be collected and unified sample preparation techniques should be followed. Key elements related to mineral resources and the environment should be determined and international or exchanged internal standard materials inserted in new national or global geochemical mapping projects in order to generate globally comparable datasets for establishing global geochemical baselines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catchment/floodplain sediment geochemical datasets from three continental-scale geochemical projects in Australia (AU), China (CH) and Europe (EU) were studied by comparing sample media, sample preparation, elements determined, analytical methods, detection limits and proportions of reportable values, and certified reference materials used. Twenty six elements (Ba, Ce, Co, Cr, Cu, Mo, Nb, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sr, Th, V, Y, Zn, Zr, Al 2 O 3 , CaO, K 2 O, MgO, MnO, Na 2 O, P 2 O 5 , SiO 2 , Fe 2 O 3 (total), TiO 2 ) were considered comparable among the 35 determined by all three projects, according to the criteria for global comparability of elements proposed in this paper. The median concentrations of all elements (except Co, Y, Zr, SiO 2 and TiO 2 ) in the three datasets increase in the following order: AU < EU ≤ CH, and the median CH/EU ratios for all elements range from 0.98 to 1.94, while the median CH/AU and EU/AU ratios for elements, such as CaO, Na 2 O, MgO and Zn are generally greater than 2 (and up to 7), which could be explained partly by protracted weathering in Australia, and partly by the smaller grain size fraction analysed of the CH dataset (< 1 mm) compared to AU and EU (< 2 mm). In conclusion, a unified sample medium should be collected and unified sample preparation techniques should be followed. Key elements related to mineral resources and the environment should be determined and international or exchanged internal standard materials inserted in new national or global geochemical mapping projects in order to generate globally comparable datasets for establishing global geochemical baselines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]