Main Environmental Indicators

Environment statistics covering a range of issues related to Water, Air, Waste and Land, are compiled by the United Nations Statistics Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The data are official data supplied by national statistical offices and/or ministries of environment (or equivalent institutions) in countries in response to a biennial UNSD/UNEP questionnaire, sent out in March 2004 (see: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/environment/questionnaire2004.htm). They are supplemented by data taken from UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, see: http://ghg.unfccc.int/) for data on greenhouse gas emissions, and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, see: http://www.fao.org/ag/agl/aglw/aquastat/main/index.stm) for data on water resources. Data from OECD countries and from most European countries are taken from OECD and from Eurostat. For land area, agricultural area and forest area, all data are from FAO, awaiting the results of an in-depth analysis of the differences between FAO data and country data sent to UNSD/UNEP.

It is the first time that data from the UNSD data collection on environment statistics are made publicly available. Results show that environment statistics is still in an early stage of development in many countries, and data are often sparse. Information on the data quality and comparability is given at the end of each table. Data from the UNSD/UNEP Questionnaire 2006 will be available soon.

Data are provided for the following topics:

Water

• Water resources
• Public water supply
• Waste water

Air Pollution

• SO2 emissions
• NOx emissions

Climate Change

• Greenhouse gas emissions
• CO2 emissions
• CH4 and N2O emissions

Waste

• Municipal waste collection
• Municipal waste treatment
• Hazardous waste

Land Use

• Area of country
• Forest area
• Agricultural land
  

Note:

The following symbols have been used:
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