Assessment of the interrelations between economic and ecological development in regions of Lithuania

In order to analyse the interaction of three components of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental – they must be defined in quantitative terms. In this respect, the ecological development plays a special role, since both economic and social development goals must conform to environmental protection restrictions. The ecological development, just as the other components of sustainable development, is a complex thing that manifests itself in many different ways. The indicators that express them have various dimensions, and their manner of change can vary, i.e. one indicator rises as the situation improves while another may fall. Multi-criteria methods are well suited for the qualitative analysis of such manifestations. The goal of this paper is to perform a comprehensive analysis of Lithuania's regional economic and ecological development using the MDE method (Multi-criteria Different Evaluation), taking into account factors that both positively and negatively affect the ecological situation, and to determine the effect that economic development has on ecological development