State of the Environment 2011 (SoE 2011)
State of the Environment 2011 Committee. Australia state of the environment 2011.
Independent report to
the Australian Government Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.
Canberra: DSEWPaC, 2011.
1 Approach
3.7 Variation across themes
With the exception of the Coasts chapter, all theme chapters have followed the overall approach to assessing and reporting described above. Assessments are theme specific, and reflect values, pressures and measures that are meaningful for the particular systems being reported on in the chapter. Assessments and reports necessarily vary between chapters according to differences in:
- precedents for national reporting (e.g. there are existing protocols for assessing ambient air quality, which are used in the Atmosphere chapter)
- components to be assessed (e.g. drainage divisions are a practical choice for the Inland water chapter but do not work for the Atmosphere chapter)
- appropriate timescales for trends and assessment (e.g. much longer time periods are required to track changes in climate, such as temperature trends, than to assess trends in land-use practices)
- pressures most affecting the theme and significance of common pressures (e.g. an assessment of the effects of fishing is found in the Marine environment and Antarctic environment chapters, while pressures associated with land-use practices feature strongly in the Inland water, Land, Biodiversity and Coasts chapters; assessments of the effects of pollution are common to many chapters but results vary according to theme)
- maturity and scale of management responses (e.g. the Inland water chapter looks at the early stages of reforming national water management systems, and the Land chapter includes analyses of a long progression of local and national-scale conservation and restoration initiatives)
- meaning of resilience (e.g. interpretations reflect differences in the nature of the systems being assessed and the range of spatial and temporal scales relevant for discussing system functions).
The components and basis for assessment are described in each chapter, as are the timescales against which values are assessed.
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