Survey of users of environmental statistics

[rogerca@cres20.anu.edu.au (Roger Attwater)]

SURVEY OF USERS OF ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS
 
The Australia Institute.
 
On behalf of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of 
New South Wales, the Australia Institute is carrying out a study of the 
availability and use of environmental statistics in Australia. The study 
is being supported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the NSW EPA 
and the Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation.
 
As a user of environmental statistics, we are very interested to find out 
what you use them for and what you would like to see available in future.
 
Please take a few minutes to fill out this questionaire and return it to 
us as soon as you can. Note that all individual responses will be treated 
as strictly confidential.
 
The results of the survey will be reported at the 1996 Australian Academy 
of Science Fenner Conference on the Environment, "Tracking Progress: 
Linking Environment and Economy Through Indicators and Accounting 
Systems", at the University of New South Wales, 30 September - 3 October.

PLEASE REPLY INCLUDING THE ORIGINAL MESSAGE AND YOU WILL THEN BE ABLE TO 
MARK THE BOXES AND FILL IN ANY OTHER INFORMATION
 
[ ]	Tick here if you would like to be sent a complimentary copy of 
the paper that will include the results of this survey.

PLEASE REPLY BEFORE 16TH AUGUST

CONTACT DETAILS
 
Name:				[		]
Organisation and position:	[		]
Address/telephone/email/:	[		]
 
 
[ ]	Tick here if you would be willing to have a 10-15 minute 
follow-up telephone interview. We plan to do 20-30 of these to explore 
some issues in more detail.
 
1. As a user of environmental statistics, what type of organisation do 
you mainly work for? Please tick one.
 
[ ]	federal agency or department
[ ]	state agency or department
[ ]	local government
[ ]	industry association
[ ]	individual firm
[ ]	consultant
[ ]	professional association
[ ]	environment or community organisation
[ ]	research organisation (eg. CSIRO)
[ ]	university
[ ]	other tertiary institution
[ ]	secondary or primary school
[ ]	general public
[ ]	media
[ ]	international agency
[ ]	other (please specify):[		]

2. Which one of these activities would you say best describes the work in 
which you use environmental statistics? Please tick one.
 
[ ]	natural resource planning or management	
[ ]	business planning & decision-making
[ ]	corporate reporting
[ ]	public sector reporting (eg. State of Environment reporting)
[ ]	research and analysis
[ ]	policy advice
[ ]	public campaigning or lobbying
[ ]	teaching & community education
[ ]	reporting to the public (media)
[ ]	other (please specify) [		]
 
3. Over the last year or so, in which environmental area have you done 
most of your work? Please tick one.
[ ]	climate change
[ ]	urban air quality
[ ]	ozone depletion
[ ]	river flow & water allocation
[ ]	water quality and inland waters
[ ]	coastal & marine waters
[ ]	groundwater
[ ]	land degradation & rehabilitation
[ ]	contamination of land & life
[ ]	waste management & recycling
[ ]	biodiversity & ecosystem integrity
[ ]	forestry & timber products
[ ]	mining & minerals
[ ]	fisheries & aquaculture
[ ]	urbanisation & urban environment
[ ]	community awareness & behaviour
[ ]	energy & energy efficiency
[ ]	agriculture & rural development
[ ]	pests, feral animals & weeds
[ ]	environmental hazards & disasters
[ ]	cleaner production
[ ]	public health
[ ]	transport
[ ]	other (please specify) [		]
 
4. Over the last year or two, would you say that you have used 
environmental statistics:
 
[ ]		[ ]		[ ]		[ ]		[ ]
very often	often		sometimes	rarely		very rarely
 
 
5. Thinking about the environmental statistics you use most, what have 
been the main sources of information? Please tick up to three.
 
[ ]	State of Environment reports
[ ]	ABS National Balance sheets
[ ]	other ABS publications
[ ]	other government statistical publications
[ ]	government reports
[ ]	greenhouse gas and other pollutant inventories
[ ]	CSIRO and other public scientific bodies
[ ]	international sources (eg. OECD, UNEP, World Resources Institute)
[ ]	industry and environment organisation reports
[ ]	corporate reports
[ ]	professional and technical journals
[ ]	conference and academic papers
[ ]	data bases like NRIC and ERIN
[ ]	community-based monitoring (eg. Streamwatch)
[ ]	newspaper reports
[ ]	self-generated or internally generated data
[ ]	others (please specify) [				]
 
6. What medium do you mainly use to access this information?
 
[ ]	paper documents
[ ]	paper maps
[ ] 	floppy disk or tape
[ ]	CD-ROM
[ ]	on-line discussion lists
[ ]	WorldWideWeb & computer sites
[ ]	other (please specify) [				]
 
7. Thinking about the availability and usefulness of environmental 
statistics, are your needs for environmental statistics satisfied:

[ ]		[ ]		[ ]		[ ]		[ ]
very well	well		reasonably	poorly		very poorly
 
 
8. If your needs as a user are not satisfied, what are the main reasons 
for this? Please tick up to three.
 
[ ]	statistics not collected or generated
[ ]	inaccessible or confidential
[ ]	too expensive
[ ]	don't know where to find them
[ ]	difficulty in interpretation
[ ]	out-dated or gaps in data
[ ]	inappropriate scale
[ ]	inappropriate units of measurement
[ ]	patchy geographic coverage
[ ]	lack of issue specific information
[ ]	incompatible data formats
[ ]	uncertainty about data quality / reliability
[ ]	others (please specify)[				]

9. In which areas do you think more resources are required to improve the 
availability and usefulness of environmental statistics?
 
[ ]	climate change
[ ]	urban air quality
[ ]	ozone depletion
[ ]	river flow & water allocation
[ ]	water quality & inland waters
[ ]	coastal & marine waters
[ ]	groundwater
[ ]	land degradation & rehabilitation
[ ]	contamination of land & life
[ ]	waste management & recycling
[ ]	biodiversity & ecosystem integrity
[ ]	forestry & timber products
[ ]	mining & minerals
[ ]	fisheries & aquaculture
[ ]	urbanisation & urban environment
[ ]	community awareness & behaviour
[ ]	energy & energy efficiency
[ ]	agriculture & rural development
[ ]	pests, feral animals & weeds
[ ]	environmental hazards & disasters
[ ]	cleaner production
[ ]	public health
[ ]	transport
[ ]	other (please specify) [				]
 
10. How could your access to useful environmental statistics be improved?

[ ]	annual directories of available resources
[ ]	regular bulletins updating total available resources
[ ]	bulletins on specific issues
[ ]	repackaging of State of Environment reports
[ ]	summaries of SoE reports
[ ]	other (please specify) [				]
 
 
11. What additional media would you find most useful?
 
[ ]	paper documents
[ ]	paper maps
[ ]	floppy disks or tape
[ ]	CD-ROM
[ ]	on-line discussion lists
[ ]	WorldWideWeb and computer sites
[ ]	other (please specify) [				]
 
12. Are there any issues not covered which you would like to comment on, 
or any question which you would like to further expand upon?
[								]
 
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE
 
The Australia Institute, PO Box 131, Deakin West, ACT 2600
Tel: (06) 281 6566

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 
Roger Attwater
Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES)
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA
 
tel: 	(06) 249 4053
email:	rogerca@cres.anu.edu.au