Download or read book Quality of Life Indicators written by United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental Studies Division and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sustainability Indicators written by Tomás Hák and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-09-26 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the concept of sustainability has been widely embraced, it has been only vaguely defined and is exceedingly difficult to measure. Sustainability indicators are critical to making the broad concept of sustainability operational by providing specific measures by which decision makers and the public can judge progress. Sustainability Indicators defines the present state of the art in indicator development. It presents a comprehensive assessment of the science behind various indicators, while placing special emphasis on their use as communications tools. The contributors draw on their experience as academics and practitioners to describe the conceptual challenges to measuring something as complex as sustainability at local, regional, national, and global scales. The book also reviews existing indicators to assess how they could be better employed, considering which indicators are overused and which have been underutilized. Sustainability Indicators will help planners and policy makers find indicators that are ready for application and relevant to their needs, and will help researchers identify the unresolved issues where progress is most urgently needed. All readers will find advice as to the most effective ways to use indicators to support decision making.
Download or read book Environmental Indicators for Agriculture Methods and Results Volume 3 written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2001-03-13 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive study to review and take stock in OECD countries of progress in developing indicators to measure the environmental performance of agriculture.
Download or read book An Overview of Environmental Indicators written by J. A. Bakkes and published by UNEP/Earthprint. This book was released on 1994 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Indicators and Indices of the State of the Environment written by VHB Research and Consulting, Inc and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Indicators and Indices written by Nafiseh Jafarzadeh and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic increase in environmental changes and developmental challenges has raised concerns that appear on all social and political agenda. All these challenges and their interactions highlight an urgent need to detect unexpected changes and have more reliable and comprehensive information to reflect improvement or deterioration of the state of the environment. In this regard, explore adequate measures of progress and monitoring towards sustainable development have taken on a new urgency and 'keeping the global environment under review,' launched by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1972. Since sustainable development is a dynamic process of changes among economic development, environmental quality and social equity it requires an integrated decision-making process in consistent with future as well as present needs. Therefore, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in 1992 which designed to holistically address the three 'pillars' of sustainable development also called for the identification of concrete policy measures and international cooperation for providing information for decision-making. Indeed disclosing information, publishing data and measuring process in order to identify whether policies has been effective assist policymakers to move toward global agreed targets. In particular, policymakers demand for standardised and easily understandable information to make sustainable and appropriate decisions among competing policy options. The crucial need to have more accurate data and capture a picture of progress generated indicators and indices as a necessary pre-requisite tool for governance. Indicators and indices by simplify and quantify information of complex issues facilitate communication with decision-makers and the public. Indeed, they provide valuable information for monitoring and enable to make some rough estimates of the state of environment. In this regard, the efforts to develop indicators and indices, as a science and policy tool, have been increased to measure progress towards sustainable development. These initiatives are important and practical steps to better inform governments and societies about the state of the environment and move towards a sustainable future. In the realm of international environmental law, like other disciplines, developing core sets of consistent and relevant indicators have been explored to track environmental performance and determine whether countries are complying with their legal obligations. However, based on the field and subject there is various range of indicators and indices. Therefore different technical definitions and framework is generated in the various disciplines. On the other hand, inadequacies in the available data, lack of basic statistical information on the environment and also insufficient policy indicators can lead to misinterpretation for policymakers. Therefore, a standardised process involving an integrated approach is required in order to develop measurable indicators and indices and to avoid ambiguity. This paper is a preliminary investigation into the policy indicators and indices, their current trends and challenges to examine their important role and how standardised indicators and indices could facilitate implementation of, and improved compliance with, international environmental agreements.
Download or read book Ecological Indicators for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Assessment written by João Carlos Marques and published by WIT Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecological indicators address ecosystems structure and/or function and are commonly used to provide synoptic information about their state. Through quantitative representations of either the forces that steer ecosystems, responses to forcing functions, or of previous, current, or future states of an ecosystem, indicators are expected to reveal conditions and trends that will help in development planning and decision making processes. Ecological indicators combine numerous environmental factors in a single value, which may be useful in terms of management and in the development of ecological concepts, compliant with the general public's understanding. Nevertheless, their application is not exempt of criticisms, the first of which is that aggregation results in an oversimplification of the ecosystem under observation. Ecological indicators must therefore be handled following the right criteria and in situations that are consistent with its intended use and scope; otherwise they may drive to confusing interpretations of data.
Download or read book Indicators of Environmental Quality written by William A. Thomas and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Researchers and agencies collect reams of objective data and authors publish volumes of subjective prose in attempts to explain what is meant by environmental quality. Still, we have no universally recognized methods for combining our quantitative measures with our qualitative concepts of environ ment. Not all of our environmental goals should be reduced to mere numbers, but many of them can be; and without these quantitative terms, we have no way of defining our present position nor of selecting positions we wish to attain on any logically established scale of environmen tal values. Stated simply, in our zeal to measure our environment we often forget that masses of numbers describing a system are insufficient to understand it or to be used in selecting goals and priorities for expending our economic and human resources. Attempts at quantitatively describing environmental quality, rather than merely measuring different environmental variables, are relatively recent. This condensing of data into the optimum number of terms with maximum information content is a truly interdisciplinary challenge. When Oak Ridge National Laboratory initiated its Environmental Program in early 1970 under a grant from the National Science Foundation, the usefulness of environmental indicators in assessing the effects of technology was included as one of the initial areas for investigation. James L. Liverman, through his encouragement and firm belief that these indicators are indispensable if we are to resolve our complex environmental problems, deserves much of the credit for the publication of this book.
Download or read book Environmental Indicators written by Robert H. Armon and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-01-05 with total page 1061 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental indicators are the first line of warning against hazards caused by humans or nature catastrophes to prevent diseases and death of living organisms. The present book covers a large variety of environmental indicators from physical-chemistry through economical, bioinformatics, electromagnetic irradiation and health aspects, all dealing with environmental pollution. This volume has been intended to environmentalists, engineers, scientists and policy makers as well to anybody interested in the latest development in the indicator field.
Download or read book Green Growth Indicators 2017 written by Collectif and published by OECD. This book was released on 2017-06-20 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policies that promote green growth need to be founded on a good understanding of the determinants of green growth and need to be supported with appropriate indicators to monitor progress. This book is an update of the 2014 edition. It presents a selection of updated and new indicators that illustrate the progress that OECD and G20 countries have made since the 1990s. The OECD Green Growth Strategy supports countries in fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies.
Download or read book Ecological Indicators for the Nation written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-05-12 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental indicators, such as global temperatures and pollutant concentrations, attract scientists' attention and often make the headlines. Equally important to policymaking are indicators of the ecological processes and conditions that yield food, fiber, building materials and ecological "services" such as water purification and recreation. This book identifies ecological indicators that can support U.S. policymaking and also be adapted to decisions at the regional and local levels. The committee describes indicators of land cover and productivity, species diversity, and other key ecological processesâ€"explaining why each indicator is useful, what models support the indicator, what the measured values will mean, how the relevant data are gathered, how data collection might be improved, and what effects emerging technologies are likely to have on the measurements. The committee reviews how it arrived at its recommendations and explores how the indicators can contribute to policymaking. Also included are interesting details on paleoecology, satellite imagery, species diversity, and other aspects of ecological assessment. Federal, state, and local decision-makers, as well as environmental scientists and practitioners, will be especially interested in this new book.
Download or read book Linking Science and Technology to Society s Environmental Goals written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1996-11-21 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where should the United States focus its long-term efforts to improve the nation's environment? What are the nation's most important environmental issues? What role should science and technology play in addressing these issues? Linking Science and Technology to Society's Environmental Goals provides the current thinking and answers to these questions. Based on input from a range of experts and interested individuals, including representatives of industry, government, academia, environmental organizations, and Native American communities, this book urges policymakers to: Use social science and risk assessment to guide decision-making. Monitor environmental changes in a more thorough, consistent, and coordinated manner. Reduce the adverse impact of chemicals on the environment. Move away from the use of fossil fuels. Adopt an environmental approach to engineering that reduces the use of natural resources. Substantially increase our understanding of the relationship between population and consumption. This book will be of special interest to policymakers in government and industry; environmental scientists, engineers, and advocates; and faculty, students, and researchers.
Download or read book Sustainability Indicators written by Simon Bell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the first edition: 'This book should be of interest to anyone interested in sustainable development, and especially sustainability indicators. Bell and Morse easily succeed in exposing the fundamental paradoxes of these concepts and, more importantly, they offer us a way forward. Readers ... will find their practical recommendations for those attempting to do sustainability analysis in the field most welcome, which is also the book's greatest strength.' Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 'This book makes a valuable contribution to the theory and practice of using indicators for sustainability. It introduces systems ideas and a range of tools and techniques that have the potential to broaden and deepen our understanding of a whole range of complex situations. Well worth a closer look.' Christine Blackmore, Open University 'This is a book that explores new ways of thinking about how to measure sustainability... It offers stimulating food for thought for environmental educators and researchers.' Environmental Education Research 'This book tells me, as an SI 'practitioner', where I have been and why, and more importantly how I should be thinking in order to effectively present to and empower the local community in the years ahead.' David Ellis, Principal Pollution Monitoring Officer, Norwich City Council 'A practical guide to the development of sustainability indicators which offers a systemic and participative way to use them at local scale. Our preliminary results are highly positive and the approach is applicable in many contexts.' Elisabeth Coudert, Programme Officer Prospective and Regional Development, Blue Plan The groundbreaking first edition of Sustainability Indicators reviewed the development and value of sustainability indicators and discussed the advantage of taking a holistic and qualitative approach rather than focusing on strictly quantitative measures. In the new edition the authors bring the literature up to date and show that the basic requirement for a systemic approach is now well grounded in the evidence. They examine the origins and development of Systemic Sustainability Analysis (SSA) as a theoretical approach to sustainability which has been developed in practice in a number of countries on an array of projects since the first edition. They look at how SSA has evolved into the practical approaches of Systemic Prospective Sustainability Analysis (SPSA) and IMAGINE, and, in particular, how a wide range of participatory methodologies have been adopted over the years. They also provide an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of projects that undertake work in the general field of sustainable development.
Download or read book Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.
Download or read book Pathways to Urban Sustainability written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. More than half the world's population lives in urban areas, with the U.S. percentage at 80 percent. Cities have captured more than 80 percent of the globe's economic activity and offered social mobility and economic prosperity to millions by clustering creative, innovative, and educated individuals and organizations. Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation. The spread and continued growth of urban areas presents a number of concerns for a sustainable future, particularly if cities cannot adequately address the rise of poverty, hunger, resource consumption, and biodiversity loss in their borders. Intended as a comparative illustration of the types of urban sustainability pathways and subsequent lessons learned existing in urban areas, this study examines specific examples that cut across geographies and scales and that feature a range of urban sustainability challenges and opportunities for collaborative learning across metropolitan regions. It focuses on nine cities across the United States and Canada (Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Grand Rapids, MI, Flint, MI, Cedar Rapids, IA, Chattanooga, TN, and Vancouver, Canada), chosen to represent a variety of metropolitan regions, with consideration given to city size, proximity to coastal and other waterways, susceptibility to hazards, primary industry, and several other factors.
Download or read book Handbook of Ecological Indicators for Assessment of Ecosystem Health written by Sven E. Jorgensen and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2005-01-27 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of ecosystem health explores the interactions between natural systems, human health, and social organization. As decision makers require a sound, modular approach to environmental management and sustainable development, ecosystem health assessment indicators are increasingly used across any number of applications. The Handbook of Ecologic
Download or read book Development Use and Abuse of Indicators and Indices in Sustainability and Environmental Management written by E. Marian Scott and published by . This book was released on 2014-08-29 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ebook on "The development, use and abuse of indicators and indices in sustainability and environmental management" was commissioned as a result of our mutual interest in the use of and abuse of indicators and indices in environmental and sustainability debates and policies. This was in part driven from purely statistical concerns about the validity and reliability of some commonly used indicators, and also by their practical application as tools to inform decision making and management. Indicators and indices are widely and increasingly used tools in official statistics, management, policy evaluation and communication. They attempt to capture quantitative aspects of many aspects of society, the economy and the environment, in relation to regulation and policy. More "latent'' elements such as sustainability, environmental performance, ecosystems services and functions, and their valuation are also captured in a variety of indicators or 'footprints'. Development of indicators and indices offers a framework for management and decision making. Subject to their scientific robustness and significance they can have great policy utility in terms of indicating progress towards key performance and policy objectives and, increasingly, high level environmental outcomes. They may also, in integrative policy terms, combat or be a reaction to compartmentalised policy, acting as surrogates and composites on the journey to integrated co-dependent policy objectives from one where issues were visible and seemingly simpler - dirty, coloured water and air. They are thus important communication and strategic tools, and have seen recent resurgence in terms of the "beyond GDP'' debate, with organizations such as OECD and Oxfam, and the EU-Open project developing indices of well-being, international development as well as water stress and many many others. While indicators and indices offer many benefits, they do also have drawbacks, for example combining "apples and oranges'', and there is much debate about how composite indices should be created. They are powerful tools that serve many purposes, including performance evaluation and public information. They are numerical, thus lending themselves to apparently precise measurement. In the series of papers in this ebook, the authors consider the methodological basis of indicators and indices, describe their robustness and sensitivities (to e.g. sampling), and consider how they are communicated and interpreted.
