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| APPENDIX 02: INFORMATION STRENGHTS AND WEAKNESSES |
| Information strengths | Information weaknesses | |
|---|---|---|
| Air | Meteorological data | Detailed monitoring of toxic substances (eg, VOCs) |
| Monitoring networks of common pollutants (SO2, NOx, CO, O3, lead) | Detailed emissions inventories of substances throughout Europe | |
| National emissions inventories | ||
| European emissions inventories (eg, CORINAIR90) | ||
| European contribution to global emissions | ||
| Inland waters | National totals for water availability and abstraction available for most countries | Regional water resources statistics missing |
| River runoff in large rivers well known | Present rates and trends of water abstraction by source and economic sectors poorly known | |
| River water quality in large EU rivers fairly well known (database exists covering the period since 1976) | Comparable and reliable data on groundwater quantity and quality almost completely lacking | |
| Efficient surface water monitoring networks in place in some countries | In general, comparison of surface water quality across Europe is very difficult due to lack of comparable and reliable data. In particular, there is a lack of data on small rivers and lakes | |
| Comparatively good data on basic water chemistry, eutrophication and acidification | Data on organic micropollutants, metals and radioactivity are patchy and incomplete | |
| Biological assessments of river quality carried out using a variety of methods, hence not comparable | ||
| No pan-European water quality database exists | ||
| Reporting schemes differ markedly between countries | ||
| The seas | Comprehensive surveillance of microbiological bathing water quality in EU waters | Very little comparable data on water quality and biology available for the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the White Sea and the Barents Sea |
| Harmonised and efficient monitoring programmes for water quality, land-based emissions, and sea food contamination exist for a few seas, including the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, as a result of implementation of international conventions. | Estimates of pollutant loads from different human activities and natural sources in general not available | |
| Unified procedures for estimating land-based emissions to seas missing | ||
| Comparison of contaminant load estimates between different seas | ||
| No pan-European marine water quality database exists | ||
| Reporting schemes differ markedly between seas | ||
| Soil | Harmonised soil map of the EU at scale 1:1 million | Updated soil map of Europe (1:1 million) harmonised with Eastern Europe. No European soil map at a scale of 1:250 000 is available for environmental assessment |
| Global assessment of soil degradation map (1:10 million) for water and wind erosion and physical degradation | In general, lack of quantitative data on soil properties | |
| Models for quantification of soil pollution | Soil survey, sampling, analytical methods and nomenclature vary between countries | |
| Models for calculating critical loads and their exceedance for acidification of European forest soils | Soil and terrain attributes that influence environmental processes are often missing in soil surveys | |
| Case studies for estimation of soil compaction effects | Data on soil fauna and flora, organic matter and pollutants are poor and inadequate | |
| Contaminated sites inventory lacking | ||
| Landscapes | Ground-based and remote sensed land use data | No international harmonisation of existing data |
| National and regional reports about landscape types | Existing classification schemes are rudimentary and lack detail | |
| Database with protected landscapes (> 1000 hectares) | No information on distribution and quality of landscape types | |
| Nature and wildlife ecosystems | Internationally harmonised classification systems and international inventories (of sites) exist for large parts of Europe (EU) | No incorporation of data from Scandinavia and Central Europe into international systems (but in progress) |
| Many countries and NGOs hold detailed information on habitats | Limited accessibility to East European data | |
| Existing data (eg, on natural potential vegetation, soil and land cover) are generally available for ecosystem assessments | No data on ecosystem distribution for the whole of Europe | |
| Information on distribution and ecological quality of ecosystems groups is partly out of date, patchy and often incomplete | ||
| Nature and wildlife species | International data on birds and mammals have relatively good coverage and are being regularly updated | Internationally harmonised data on reptiles, amphibians and fish are incomplete, and lacking on invertebrates |
| Red species lists on endangered species follow international standards | Insufficient large-scale monitoring schemes for internationally endangered, migratory and indicator species | |
| Large amount of scientific work, literature, museum materials exist for many species and their populations | Insufficient data coverage for the supra-regional decline of unendangered species (eg, plants) | |
| Urban environment | Census data (population, land area, housing, households, etc) | City boundaries definition is a major difficulty which undermines the meaning and comparability of data such as population, land use and infrastructure density |
| Data on urban landuse, infrastructures, and public transport are available at the municipal level | Availability and comparability of environmental quality data (eg, noise) is very limited due to different methods of collection and classification | |
| Data on services supplied at the municipal level (eg, drinking water, sewage, municipal waste, etc) | Data on the use of resources (eg, energy and materials) are not available at the municipal level | |
| Monitoring of concentrations of common air pollutants (SO2, NOx, CO, O3, lead) | Information on environmental performance of urban planning and management are scarce | |
| Energy flows by sources and end-uses in a few cities | ||
| Initiatives to create a common framework for developing urban environmental indicators | ||
| Emissions | National emission inventories of pollutants into the air containing detailed spatial information on human activities and their resulting (estimated) emissions of a wide range of pollutants | Direct emission measurements infrequent |
| Internationally coordinated inventories for emisions to the atmosphere | Emissions into water bodies not quantified in detail; almost complete lack of data on catchment scale | |
| Releases into or onto land incomplete and fragmentary (see Waste) | ||
| Limited comparability of national emissions inventories | ||
| Limited integration of inventories between emission to air, water, land, human activities and major environmental problems | ||
| Timely emission statistics | ||
| Waste | National inventories of waste generation and management in several European countries | Harmonised waste classification systems and harmonised inventories of waste generation and management are lacking |
| International initiatives for the harmonisation of waste statistics (eg, European Waste Catalogue) | Monitoring of landfills and emissions from waste treatment facilities and compliance with standards are insufficient | |
| Transfrontier movements of waste are being recorded by UNEP under the Basel Convention | Reliable data on transfrontier movement of hazardous waste (origin/destination) not available | |
| Data on most types of radioactive waste produced by civil activities available in most Western European countries | Data on radioactive waste handled at military sites are usually not available | |
| National registers for contaminated sites in a few countries | European and national inventories of contaminated sites still lacking | |
| Noise and radiation | Some noise data available for transport (road, rail and air) | Availability and comparability of noise exposure is poor due to different limit values, measurement techniques and diversity of descriptors used. Poor time series does not allow analysis |
| Sources and effects of natural and artificial ionising radiation generally well known | Lack of data on non-transport noise (eg, recreational noise) | |
| Poor noise data in Central and Eastern Europe in general | ||
| Lack of data on annoyance from noise | ||
| Lack of data for Europe on UV-B reaching the Earth's surface | ||
| Lack of data on artificial sources of UV-B | ||
| Exposure data for electromagnetic fields lacking | ||
| Contamination and effects from radiation 'hotspots' from spills, accidents and waste disposal by the former USSR lacking | ||
| Chemicals and genetically modified organisms | Toxicity and ecotoxicity data for the small fraction of chemicals profiled and catalogued in international registers and newly coming on to the market | Toxicity and ecotoxicity data not satisfactory for most of the more than 100 000 chemicals in use and circulation, especially concerning potential impacts on human health and the environment |
| Environmental pathways of chemicals | ||
| Natural and technological hazards | Impacts of individual accidents on human health usually well reported | Data on environmental damage, eological effects, long-term recovery and clean-up actions not available |
| Location, nature and causes of major accidents reported on national basis and by a few international registers (eg, MARS) | Information on type and site of releases often very approximate; in general, accidents reported incompletely | |
| Industrial accidents in Northern Europe well covered | Paucity of data on industrial accidents in Eastern Europe; acute problem of hazard and risk quantification for older plants in Central and Eastern Europe | |
| Natural hazards widely reported on regional, national and international levels | Environmental impacts of natural hazards not routinely reported. Particular lack of information on potential interaction between natural hazards and human activities | |
| Energy | Primary energy production | Data on available resources of non-renewable energy sources (eg, coal and oil reserves) |
| Total energy consumption | Sectoral fuel consumption by end-use | |
| Forecasts of future energy consumption | Emissions to air originating from energy sources for the whole of Europe | |
| Spills from pipelines in Western Europe | Detailed inventories of major energy using plant (their age, size, technology, etc) | |
| Data on renewable energy production and consumption | ||
| Land area used by energy and electricity generation plants | ||
| Energy conservation and efficiency measures | ||
| Spills from pipelines in Central and Eastern Europe | ||
| Industry | Industrial production, employment and trade flows | Limited data on emissions to air from different industrial sectors for the whole of Europe |
| Energy use by industry as a whole | In Central and Eastern Europe, industrial contribution to emissions not separated out from total figures | |
| Voluntary reporting by companies | Limited data on emissions to water | |
| Poor data on soil contamination from industrial activities | ||
| Industrial waste data is very poor, especially in Central and Eastern Europe (volumes, composition, fate of various wastes) | ||
| Poor industrial waste classification systems | ||
| Limited data on resource use by industry (raw materials, energy, water) | ||
| Transport | Vehicle stocks and transport volumes in Western Europe | Contribution of transport to GNP |
| Length of infrastructure network | Vehicle stocks and transport volumes in Central and Eastern Europe | |
| Energy use by transport | Average distances travelled by different transport modes and data on 'alternative' modes of transport, such as walking and bicycling | |
| Traffic accidents | Emissions to air from road transport are difficult to estimate (CO2, NOX, VOCs etc) and off-road emissions lacking | |
| Emissions from aircraft, railway and water transport | ||
| Transport waste (eg, old cars and tyres) | ||
| Travel speeds, fleet composition, occupancy rates, load factors | ||
| Noise from transport sources not collected on a systematic regular basis, using same methodology | ||
| Routine and accidental releases from transport | ||
| Land area used by different transport modes | ||
| Agriculture | In general, adequate information on the structure of production, inputs to the land to maximise production, and production itself | Data missing on the relative contribution to impacts on the environment of agriculture production and change in agriculture systems |
| For EU and EFTA countries, comprehensive information on production, farm size, employment structure, fertiliser and pesticide use, and livestock | ||
| Forestry | For Western Europe, a reasonable amount of data are available on area by broad forest type, rates of reforestation and afforestation, volumes of the standing stock of wood and annual growth, annual fellings and removals, production of roundwood, pulp and charcoal | Economic data on forest production, trade, and other factors, such as contribution to GDP/GNP, are either lacking or obsolete in Eastern Europe |
| Surveys also exist on forest condition in a large part of Europe | Few available inventory data for the Baltic states, Moldova and the European part of the Russian Federation | |
| Few data are available in general on specific environmental effects associated with forestry | ||
| In general, accurate data are lacking on the location, extent and composition of afforestation and reforestation, planting with introduced tree species, ancient/natural forests | ||
| Fishing and aquaculture | Trend data on catches, fishing effort and fleet capacity (especially for the Northeast Atlantic) | Contribution of fishing to GNP |
| Stock data for the Northeast Atlantic | Catch data is not always reliable due to unreported catches or misreporting | |
| Estimates of maximum sustainable yields | ||
| Data on fishing techniques, employment levels and productivity | ||
| Catch and stock data for the Mediterranean and Black seas | ||
| Catch and stock data for inland fisheries | ||
| Data on aquaculture production | ||
| Effluents arising from aquaculture | ||
| Tourism and recreation | Trend data on arrivals at frontiers, and tourism arrivals and nights stayed in accommodation establishments | Contribution of tourism to GNP |
| Arrivals at frontiers available by transport mode | Visitor numbers for specific destinations or different tourism settings | |
| Relevant data on environmental impacts | ||
| Emissions to air and water and waste production from tourist activities | ||
| Use of different modes of transport used for tourism and recreation | ||
| Pan-European attitude surveys on preferred tourism destinations | ||
| Measures of the impact of tourism on the environment (indicators of carrying capacity), such as: | ||
| Households | Trend data on number of households and number of people per household (not good for former USSR) | Energy data is not separated from the commercial and service sector |
| Trends in car ownership | End-use of energy by appliances | |
| Trends in consumer spending | Land area occupied by households | |
| Public attitudes | Water supply to households, especially in Central and Eastern Europe | |
| Details on end-use of water by households | ||
| Emissions to air and water (sewage production) and waste production (the volumes, recycling rates, amounts of hazardous pollutants) | ||
| Resource use by households (eg, energy and water use, waste recycling rates) |
For references, please go to https://eea.europa.eu./publications/92-826-5409-5/page043.html or scan the QR code.
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