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Water Quality Indicators in the ‘Beyond GDP’
Process
Lucas Porsch
Ecologic Institute
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Overview
The Beyond GDP Agenda and Water quality indicators
Current projects of the Ecologic Institute
IN STREAM (Integration of Mainstream Economic Indicators with
Sustainable Development Objectives)
The Environmental Pressures Index
Concluding remarks
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Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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Beyond GDP I
GDP still the most popular indicator for economic (and also social)
welfare of nations
Long standing criticism on GDP as a welfare indicator
Recently increased focus on environmental sustainability
The financial crisis has given renewed impetus to the discussion
Stiglitz/Sen/Fitoussi commission of the French government
Beyond GDP conference and communication by the European Commission
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Beyond GDP II
Key deficits of GDP and other mainstream indicators in respect to water
quality
Net versus gross: GDP is a flow indicator which does not reflect any
changes in stock which incentivises short term thinking
Quality improvements: The valuation of quality improvements for any
goods and services is difficult and affects the overall estimates
dramatically
Valuation of health: Any improvement in health is not (or only on the
basis of its health care costs) included in GDP
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Beyond GDP III
The ecologic institute has been involved in the Beyond GDP process for
a while
Organising the Beyond GDP conference for the European Commission in
2009
Involved in several FP6 and FP7 projects on the Beyond GDP agenda
(EXIOPOL, OPEN:EU, IN STREAM)
Currently conducting data work for DG Environment on the Environmental
Pressures Index
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IN STREAM I
IN STREAM: FP 7 Project - 09/2008 until 09/2011 – www.in-stream.eu
“Integration of Mainstream Economic Indicators with Sustainable
Development Objectives”
8 Partners – 5 member states
Key objectives
Evaluate key existing indicators and indicator efforts
Evaluate institutional needs and opportunities
Improve quantitative models linking indicators
Assess the costs of reaching sustainability targets
Recommend composite indicators and implementation
16 June 2011
Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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IN STREAM II: Policy needs for indicators
Objective
Setting:
•Need for
availability over
time and
internationally to
allow comparisons
Impact
Assessment:
•Need to reflect
policy specific
causalities
Problem definition:
•Credibility with the
public for
communication
16 June 2011
Policy Monitoring:
•Need for timely data
availability to match
short policy cycles
Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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IN STREAM III: Key Research conducted relevant to the workshop
Qualitative analysis of indicators with RACER and SWOT
Valuation of health impacts of emission reductions (University of Stuttgart)
Analysis of health impacts of air emissions for different illnesses
Valuation of impact of illnesses using treatment costs and DALY (Disability
Adjusted Life Years)
Valuation of biodiversity impacts of emission reductions (University of Stuttgart)
Analysis of impact of emissions on biodiversity
Valuation of biodiversity impacts on the basis of recovery or replacement
costs (TEEB)
Potential methodology to value quality improvements in water and to aggregate
water quality indicators
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2011
Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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Environmental Pressure Index I
Environmental Pressures Index is aiming to create a headline indicator
for environmental pressures set up by DG Environment
Index should include all environmental pressures of human activity
Value added of the index and key challenges
One indicator to publish alongside GDP to signify the environmental costs of
economic growth
Variability of data quality and timing – Problem of data gaps
Aggregation and weighting of environmental pressures within and
throughout categories
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Environmental Pressure Index II
Data work for the indicator on three examples
Pollution by nutrients to inland water: Measures the pressures on
aquatic ecosystems (N, P, BOD5)
Aquaculture pollution to marine waters: Measures the pressures arising
from aquaculture production to marine waters
Riverine emissions to marine waters: Measures the emissions of N, P,
Pb, Cd and Hg to marine waters (kt/a)
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Environmental Pressure Index III: Pollution by nutrients to inland waters
Data sources:
EEA Waterbase data
Eurostat nutrient balance data (under consideration – pending)
Rejected data sources:
FATE and Impact of Pollutants in Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecosystems – incomplete
temporal coverage & modeling assumptions
UNEP GEMStat – incomplete geographical and temporal coverage
RIVM (NL) Critical loads databases and maps – no updated modeling results
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Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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Environmental Pressure Index IV: Pollution by nutrients to inland waters
Key challenges
Temporal and geographical data gaps
Aggregation:
Arithmetic mean of pollutants vs % of monitoring stations exceeding threshold
(Definition of EU- thresholds)
Composite indicator of N & P vs single indicators (nutrient “equivalents” following
Adriaanse (1993))
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Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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Environmental Pressure Index V: Aquaculture pollution to marine waters
Data sources:
Aquaculture: effluent water quality from finfish farms (EEA: SEBI 022)
Aquaculture production (EEA: CSI 033)
Key challenges:
SEBI 022 is still under development by the EEA, may have to resort to CSI 033 as a
proxy
Appropriate scaling factor: “total marine aquaculture per km coastline”: reflects
pressure well, but does not consider share of impact by non-marine based countries
which consume aquaculture products
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Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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Environmental Pressure Index VI: Emissions to marine waters
Data sources:
HELCOM: Assessment Reports on Waterborne inputs of heavy metals, N and P to the Baltic Sea
OSPAR: Riverine Inputs and Direct Discharges (RID)
Blacksea Commission: pending
Rejected data sources:
Nutrients in transitional, coastal and marine waters (EEA: CSI 021) – no annual data
Loads of hazardous substances to coastal waters (EEA: WHS 007) – no annual data
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Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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Environmental Pressure Index VII: Emissions to Marine Waters
Key challenges:
Geographical data gaps: Mediterranen Sea
Temporal data gaps: not all signatories to the HELCOM and OSPAR
conventions cover the period 1995-2008
Data gap filling
Composite indicator or single indicators?
Composite indicator by e.g. following Adriaanse‘s (1993) approach of heavy
metal and nutrient equivalents
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Copenhagen: Water Resource Efficiency Workshop – Lucas Porsch
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Conclusions
Challenging inclusion of water quality indicators into composite indices
Change to composite indicators needed (net indicators and quality
adjustments)
Varied data quality of indicators
Aggregation as the key challenge
Aggregation within categories and over categories
Weighting and treatment of categories with missing data
Valuation of different pollutions and other quality criteria needed to robustly
aggregate the different quality criteria
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