New sustainable development indicators published
August 10, 2009
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published the latest version of its annual free booklet, "Sustainable Development Indicators in Your Pocket". The booklet provides a statistical overview of the UK’s progress in dealing with a variety of environmental, economical and social issues, by assessing performance against a comprehensive range of indicators.
New environmental information presented for 2009 includes an environmental quality indicator that has been updated to incorporate previously unpublished data. It reveals that a higher proportion of people in England's most deprived regions may live in areas with multiple environmental conditions that are relatively worse than people living in less deprived areas.
The 68 indicators are comprised of 126 measures and, by examining these, it is possible to make comparisons with previous years. Environmental measures showing improvement include renewable electricity generation, CO2 emissions from domestic energy usage, waste and land recycling, farming management and housing conditions.
Environmental measures showing deterioration include aviation greenhouse gas emissions, shipping greenhouse gas emissions, use of fossil fuels for electricity generation, energy supply (consumption exceeding UK production), farmland bird populations, and ozone pollution in urban areas.
Of the 68 indicators, 20 are also UK Framework Indicators. They refer to key impacts and outcomes, and include the following.
- Greenhouse gas emissions - in Spring 2009, emissions of CO2, the principal greenhouse gas, were approximately 10% lower than in 1990. Between 2007 and 2008, CO2 emissions fell by around 2%.
- River water quality - etween 1990 and 2007, the proportion of rivers of good biological quality in England increased from 55% to 72%. In 2007, 76% of rivers in England were of good biological quality, compared with 55% in 1990. For Wales, 87% of rivers were of good biological quality in 2006 and more than 90% of the rivers have been of good chemical quality since 1993. In Scotland, the percentage of rivers of good quality has remained stable at around 87%.
- Bird populations - populations of farmland birds fell by 42% between 1970 and 1993, remained broadly stable from then until 2005, but declined once more in the following two years. In 2007, populations of woodland birds were approximately 20% less than in the peak of the early 1970s. The UK's breeding seabird populations increased by 37% between 1970 and 1987. Since 1999, however, they have fallen again.
Further details of the booklet and the statistics it contains can be found on the Defra website.
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