GEO Resource Book : GEO Resource Book : Regional VersionRegional Version

M. Lal – CESDAC, IndiaM. Lal – CESDAC, India

www.cesdac.org.inwww.cesdac.org.in

Global Environment Outlook

GEO is the first and foremost a participatory and consultative process for environmental assessment; it aims to facilitate the interaction between science on the one hand and policy and decision making on the other.

Each GEO assessment is multi-dimensional in scope, incorporating environmental, policy, geographic and temporal perspectives. Environmental dimensions include:

thematic (related to the state and trends of land, atmosphere, water and biodiversity);

functional (related to the provision of environmental goods and services); sectoral (relationships between the environment and activity areas such as energy use, industry, tourism, agriculture and trade); cross-cutting (relating to issues such as production, consumption, gender, poverty, human security and vulnerability); and interlinkages within and among all of the above.

DPSIR Framework for GEO Process

“IEA - Primary Objective”

IEA is a methodology used for assessment processes and products following the GEO Framework, irrespective of whether it is for a region, nation or a city, for making policy relevant recommendations about the environmental state and trends and their links with human development and thus facilitate the “community with improved access to meaningful environmental data and information, and help increase the capacity of governments to use environmental information for decision making and action planning for sustainable human development”.

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT

Integrated refers to a number of aspects of the assessment:- • linking state of the environment analysis with policy analysis;•incorporating global and regional perspectives, as appropriate; •incorporating historical and future perspectives;•covering a broad spectrum of issues and policies; and looking at dynamic and complex interactions between the environment and human well-being in place-based contexts (e.g., particular regions, countries, ecosystems, watersheds).

IEA & the Regional Assessments

Assessments in relation to IEA

State of Environment (SoE) : Traditional SoE reporting provides information on the environment and trends. It mainly focuses on the biophysical environment than the pressures humanity exerts on it.

IEA: IEA provides a participatory, structured approach to linking knowledge and action. It is a participatory, integrated and multi-disciplinary process

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA): This is a tool or framework used to assess environmental impacts of an activity. EIA is a process for evaluating possible risks or effects on the environment of proposed activity or development. The purpose is to inform decisions-making and other stakeholders of potential environmental impacts, and to suggest ways to reduce or minimize impacts that would arise from proposed activities. An IEA is intended to drive decisions in the context of a given project.

IEA: IEA is used for assessment process to ensure that environmental problems receive appropriate, adequate and timely consideration by governments. The IEA approach is necessary for making policy relevant recommendations about the environmental state and trends and links with human development. The results from EIA might serve as case studies to illustrate.

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA): SEA is a systematic and comprehensive process of evaluating the environmental effects of a policy, plan or programme and its alternatives at its earliest possible stage. SEA represents a body of practice and methodology directly relevant to the policy analysis component of IEA, but does not involve the reporting requirement.

IEA: SEA is ideally undertaken before policies, plans and programmes are put in place. It also considers the environment as a system, looking at impacts on the interface between environment and socioeconomic conditions. IEA looks linkage between human well-being and environmental trends. IEA also extends its scope of assessment to the regular reporting.

Assessment Reports in Asia and the Pacific

Sub-regional level: Central Asia IEA report (published 2007) Greater Mekong Environment Outlook (published

2007) South Asia Environment Outlook (on-going)

National level: Tajikistan IEA report (published 2007) Cambodia IEA report (on-going) Lao Environment Outlook (on-going) Turkmenistan Environment Outlook (on-going) Kyrgyzstan Environment Outlook (on-going) Sri Lanka Environment Outlook (on-going) Bhutan Environment Outlook (published 2008) Vietnam Climate Change Report (on-going)

City level: Dhaka IEA report (published 2007) Kathmandu Valley IEA report (published 2007) Shenzhen Environment Outlook (on-going) Bangkok Climate Change Report (on-going)

Regional GEO Book: Contents

Module 1: The GEO Approach to Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA)

Module 2: National IEA Process Design and Organization

Module 3: Developing an Impact Strategy Module 4: Monitoring, Data and Indicators Module 5: Asia - Regional Training Manual on

Reporting Module 6: Scenario Development and Analysis Module 7: Creating Communication Output Module 8: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning –

for Increased Impact and Improvement of the IEA Process

The GEO Resource Book focuses on:

securing institutional commitment for an IEA;

identification of stakeholders and defining their roles;

instruments for conducting the process; allocation of required resources (time,

human, financial); andinteractive process design and its

benefits.

Interactive training elements on case examples, discussion questions and exercises.

Key attributes include:- Participatory, Multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral, Integrated,

Multi-product and Institutionalized

The number of activities include:- Establish an institutional framework for collaboration and

organization of IEA Establish and maintain an information base (i.e., set up

information system, gather and update high quality data) Discussion forum (common methodology, trends of the driving

forces and pressures, key environmental issues, policies, policy options and scenarios)

Capacity-building activities (workshops and other non-workshop based interactions)

Define and implement a communication and impact strategy

The GEO Approach - Key Questions

Key questions to be answered in the GEO - IEA framework

Generic Institutional Framework

Identifying stakeholders, their roles and interests

Information Processing, Analysis and Writing (DPSIR logic)

Regional Assessment – Driving Forces & Pressures

Dynamics of DemographicsLand & Energy ResourcesEconomic ActivitiesTerritorial OccupancyWater Availability & DemandAir Quality & Atmospheric EmissionsWaste Production & DisposalTrans-boundary Issues, if any.

Importance of data and indicator components

A larger number of issues may come up during a

stakeholder IEA process. One might find it useful to use

a set of criteria to narrow down the issues, using criteria

such as the following: Urgency and immediate impact Irreversibility Effects on human health Effects on economic productivity Number of people affected Loss of aesthetic values Impacts on cultural and historical heritages

Framework of Environmental Data Flows

Layers of Spatial Data

aerial photography satellite imagery country boundaries protected natural areas habitat regions rivers and other water bodies elevation contours climate data land use and soil type data wildlife populations administrative boundaries

Relationship between Data, Indicators and Indices

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for IEA

A useful tool for manipulating and analysing data, particularly to examine spatial relationships among landscape features, and in monitoring long-term changes.

Example: Pattern of drying up of the Aral sea between 1977 and 2006

Plausible Linkages between Database and Report Development

Environmental Assessment: Ecosystem vs. Political Boundaries

Case study of a ecosystem-based assessment

Indicator Development Process

Selecting appropriate INDICATORS to describe environmental states, pressures and drivers

START HERE

Impact Strategy Steps

An impact strategy builds on communication activities in several key respects

Linking Values, Issues, Indicators and Performance Criteria in a Participatory Process

A legal mandate and requirement to produce an IEA helps initiation of process

legislation may call for collaboration among government(s) and /or agencies that contribute to IEA;

a common methodology for data collection may be identified among the regional authorities, private and public organizations, and scientists or technical experts;

the legislation may refer to environmental reports to be produced by a range of public and private organizations;

legislation may promote exchange of data and harmonization of reporting initiatives; and

the lead agency’s role in preparing the way for consultations and external participation.

Policy Analysis for IEA - Steps

Understanding the issue to determine what is happening to the environment and why, and what the impacts are.

Preparing a policy commitment review to understand the array of high-level strategies affecting the environmental issue.

Conducting a policy instrument scan to identify the mix of policies influencing the environmental issue, and the effectiveness of this mix.

Performing a policy gap and coherence analysis to determine if relevant policies are in place and focused on the most important drivers and pressures.

Analysis of Existing Policies

Framework for Monitoring &Evaluation in the IEA Process

Time Delivery - Key Activities & Outputs

Summary

A draft GEO Resource Book for Regional Applications has been finalised by a team of experts and will be made available at the end of this workshop for review.

Your constructive suggestions and inputs will go in a big way in early finalisation of this Resource Book.

Deadline at UNEP-RRC for your valuable inputs is Oct 15, 2008 or earlier.

Questions please ??

Thanks for your kind attention