| BACKGROUND
How do indicators relate to State of the Environment reporting?
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| State of the Environment
(SOE) reports are produced to increase awareness and understanding
of environmental trends and conditions, their causes and consequences;
to provide a foundation for improved decision-making at all
levels from individuals through to governments and international
organisations; and to facilitate management of progress towards
sustainability.
Indicators are typically used for reporting on these questions
in a SOE report. Indicators can also be used to measure changes
in the environment from one SOE report to the next.
The indicators presented on this website are arranged according
to the Driving Forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR)
framework.
Driving forces are the human influences and
activities that, when combined with environmental conditions,
underpin environmental change. Indicators for driving forces
describe the social, demographic and economic developments
in societies and the corresponding changes in lifestyles,
overall levels of consumption and production patterns.
Pressures are exerted on resources and ecosystems
as a result of human activities (i.e. driving forces), and
include consumption and waste generation patterns and trends.
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SOE report includes... |
...the following information:
- Current condition of the biophysical environment;
- Analysis of trends or changes in the environment;
- Analysis of the causes or key driving forces of these
changes;
- An assessment and interpretation of the implications
and impacts of these trends; and
- An assessment of the actual and potential societal response(s)
to environmental problems.
... by answering several basic questions:
- What is happening to the environment?
- Why is it happening?
- What are we doing about it and what can we do about
it?
- What will happen if we don't act now?
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DPSIR framework |
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State refers to the condition of the environment
resulting from pressures (e.g. level of air pollution, land
degradation or deforestation).
Impacts
are the results of pressures on the current state of the environment,
which occur in a certain sequence. For instance, air pollution
may cause global warming (primary effect), which may in turn
cause an increase in temperature (secondary effect), which may
provoke a rise of sea level (tertiary impact), which could result
in a loss of biodiversity and thus impact on human health and
well-being.
Responses are the societal
actions taken collectively or individually to ease or prevent
negative environmental impacts, correct environmental damage
or conserve natural resources. Responses may include regulatory
action, environmental or research expenditure, public opinion
and consumer preferences, changes in management strategy, and
provision of environmental information.
A variation of the DPSIR framework can also be used. This slightly
different framework is known as the Pressure-State-Response
(PSR) framework. The PSR framework only considers the Pressure,
State and Response elements defined above. |
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