Environmental indicator

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Environmental indicators are simple measures that tell us what is happening in the environment. Since the environment is very complex, indicators provide a more practical and economical way to track the state of the environment than if we attempted to record every possible variable in the environment. For example, the health of amphibian populations are often monitored as they are very sensitive to changes in their habitats and may provide early warning of ecological impacts from climate change, loss of stratospheric ozone, habitat alterations, or the presence of pesticides.

Environmental indicators can include physical, biological and chemical measures known as ecological indicators. Examples of these include atmospheric temperature, the concentration of ozone in the stratosphere or the number of breeding bird pairs in an area. Indicators can also measure human activities or anthropogenic pressures, such as greenhouse gas emissions, or the societal responses used to address environmental issues, such as the number of people serviced by sewage treatment.

Trend in global temperature anomalies of the last 150 years as an indicator of climate change

Environmental indicators are tools that can serve different purposes. They can be used to see if environmental objectives are being met, they can be used to communicate the state of the environment to the general public and decision makers and they can be used as a diagnostic tool through detecting trends in the environment.

Environmental indicators can be measured and reported at different scales. For example, a town may track air quality along with water quality and count the number of rare species of birds to estimate the health of the environment in their area. Others have attempted to monitor and assess the state of the planet using indicators. In other cases, indicators are developed for specific ecosystems, such as the Great-Lakes in North America.

1 Audience
2 Indicator systems and communicating them
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Audience

The type of indicators selected or developed should be partially based on who will be using the information from the indicators. There are generally three possible audiences to consider, each with different information needs. These audiences are: 1) technical experts and science advisors, 2) policy-makers, decision makers and resource managers, and 3) general public and media.

The technical experts and scientists will be interested in detailed and complex indicators. These indicators should have scientific validity, sensitivity, responsiveness and have data available on past conditions. The audience that includes policy-makers and resource managers will be concerned with using indicators that are directly related to evaluating policies and objectives. They require their indicators to be sensitive, responsive and have historical data available like the technical audience, but they are also looking for indicators that are cost-effective and have meaning for public awareness. Finally, the general public responds to indicators that have clear and simple messages and are meaningful to them, such as the UV index and the air quality index. ^[1]^[2]

[edit] Indicator systems and communicating them

Dashboard of Sustainability

Individual indicators are designed to translate complex information in a concise and easily understood manner in order to represent a particular phenomenon (e.g. ambient air quality). In contrast, indicator systems (or collections of indicators), when seen as a whole are meant to provide an assessment of a much larger domain (e.g. sustainable development, economy, environment).

However, interpreting indicator systems can be difficult as they often include hundreds of indicators and require a certain level of knowledge and expertise in various disciplines to fully grasp. As a result, a number of methods have been devised in the recent past to boil down this information and allow for rapid consumption by those who do not have the time or the expertise to analyse the full set of indicators. In general these methods can be categorized as numerical aggregation (e.g. indices), short selections of indicators (e.g. core set or headline indicators), short visual assessments (e.g. arrows, traffic signals), and compelling presentations (e.g. maps or the dashboard of sustainability).

[edit] References

^ Ditor, M., O'Farrell, D., Bond, W., Engeland, J. (2001). "Guidelines for the development of sustainability indicators". Environment Canada and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
^ Rice, J.C. & Rochet, M-J. (2005). "A framework for selecting a suite of indicators for fisheries management". ICES Journal of Marine Science 62: 516–527. doi:10.1016/j.icesjms.2005.01.003.