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Appendix C: India Indicators Testing Report Appendix C: India Indicators Testing Report Report of the NCAVES Project 1 | Page Report on SEEA & SDGs -by Monica Sharma 2 | Page Contents I. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3 II. Linkage between System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ....................................................................................... 4 III. Selection of indicators ............................................................................................................ 7 IV. SDG Indicator 15.1.1: Forest area as a percentage of total land area ............................. 8 IV.1. SEEA Account for Forest Extent ....................................................................................... 8 IV.2. Calculating SDG Indicator 15.1.1 .................................................................................. 10 IV.3. Importance of SDG Indicator 15.1.1 .............................................................................. 12 V. SDG Indicator 6.6.1 – Change in the extent of water-related ecosystems over time. 13 V.1. SEEA Account for Water-Related Ecosystems ............................................................ 14 V.2. Calculating SDG Indicator 6.6.1 .................................................................................... 16 V.3. Importance of SDG Indicator 6.6.1 ................................................................................ 20 VI. SDG Indicator 11.7.1 – Average share of the built-up area of cities that is open space for public use for all, by sex, age and persons with disabilities .... ¡Error! Marcador no definido. VI.1. SEEA EEA Accounts for Urban Areas .............................. ¡Error! Marcador no definido. VI.2. Calculating SDG Indicator 11.7.1 ..................................... ¡Error! Marcador no definido. VI.3. Importance of SDG Indicator 11.7.1 ................................. ¡Error! Marcador no definido. VII. SDG Indicator 15.3.1 - Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area ...... 23 VII.1. SEEA EEA Accounts for Land Degradation ................................................................. 24 VII.2. Calculating SDG Indicator 15.3.1 .................................................................................. 25 VII.3. Importance of SDG Indicator 15.3.1 .............................................................................. 26 VIII. SDG Indicator 11.3.1- Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate 27 VIII.1. SEEA EEA Accounts for Ecosystem Extent .................................................................. 28 VIII.2. Calculating SDG Indicator 11.3.1 .................................................................................. 29 VIII.3. Importance of SDG Indicator 11.3.1 .............................................................................. 33 IX. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 34 ANNEXURES ..................................................................................................................................... 35 Annexure I ...................................................................................................................................... 35 Annexure II .................................................................................................................................... 36 Annexure III ................................................................................................................................... 40 Annexure IV ................................................................................................................................... 41 Annexure V .................................................................................................................................... 42 Annexure VI ................................................................................................................................... 68 3 | Page SEEA & SDGs I. Introduction The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were born at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 20121. The objective was to produce a set of universal goals that meet the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges threatening the world. SDGs also known as Global goals with an aim to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. In September 20152, the General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Figure 1). Building on the principle of “leaving no one behind”, the new Agenda emphasizes an all-inclusive approach to achieving sustainable development for all. Figure 1: Sustainable Development Goals Source: United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Knowledge Platform These 17 SDGs spans across 169 targets and 247 global indicators3 (and 231 unique indicators) which indicate both the scale and ambition of SDGs. They are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. These indicators help to access the condition of 1 https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/background/ 2 https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/envision2030.html 3 https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/indicators-list/ 4 | Page different aspects of the economy including the social, economic and environmental impacts. II. Linkage between System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA)4 is a framework that integrates economic and environmental data to provide a more comprehensive and multipurpose view of the interrelationships between the economy and the environment and the stocks and changes in stocks of environmental assets, as they bring benefits to humanity. By providing internationally agreed concepts and definitions on environmental-economic accounting, SEEA proves to be an instrumental tool for compiling cohesive statistics, deriving coherent and comparable indicators and assessing progress towards sustainable development goals. Because of the strength of the underpinning accounting structure, particularly in terms of defining relationships between indicators and in providing a strong data compilation and confrontation framework, the SEEA Framework represents an important information base from which indicators can be chosen for use in populating different sets of indicators. SEEA supports the progress on range of global initiatives like Agenda 2030, post-2020 biodiversity agenda, and international climate policy. Ecosystem accounts formed under the ambit of SEEA framework, whether it is extent account, condition account or ecosystem services account; provide an underpinning connection between the former and the Sustainable Development Goals. Amongst them, ecosystem extent account is an essential determinant for several SDG indicators, as it is comparatively easy to assess and provides a good indicator for broader sustainable development concerns. For example5, extent of freshwater ecosystems is a good proxy for water provisioning services. Forest extent is a good proxy for conservation of forest biodiversity and the delivery of forest ecosystem services. SDG indicators were reviewed and expert judgment was used to identify any indicators that could in part (e.g., ratio indicators) or completely, be generated by the SEEA framework (e.g., SDG Indicator 15.1.1 Forest area as a proportion of total land area), or that could provide input data to the SEEA framework (e.g., SDG Indicator 14.3.1 on marine acidity for ecosystem condition accounting). Each indicator was assigned a ‘Full’, ‘Partial’, or ‘None’6 possibility for alignment with the selected SEEA accounting modules where: 4 https://seea.un.org/ 5 Short notes on Testing Selected SDG Indicators Using SEEA EEA, UN, 2020 can be accessed at: https://seea.un.org/sites/seea.un.org/files/readme_first_-_testing_sdg_indicatorsv_8may2020.pdf 6 Assessing the linkages between global indicator initiatives, SEEA Modules and the SDG Targets, Working Document (Version: 4th July, 2019) can be accessed at: https://seea.un.org/sites/seea.un.org/files/seea_global_indicator_review_methodological_note_pos t_workshop_0.pdf 5 | Page • Full: o Where the SEEA has obvious potential to provide all, or most, of the information required to calculate the indicator or when the indicator clearly represents an input data for an accounting item of interest (e.g., an indicator of condition that could be directly integrated into an ecosystem condition account). This represents a conceptual alignment based on the structure of the SEEA framework. • Partial: o Where the SEEA could organise some of the information for calculating the indicator but: 1. there were more efficient /accepted means already in place; 2. the indicator was derived from a statistical procedure to deal with missing data gaps (e.g., Living Planet Index); or, 3. the SEEA provides information that is essential or highly suited for calculating the indicator, but substantial additional information from non-SEEA sources is also required. • None: o where the identified accounts were not considered relevant to the issue the indicator is designed to inform on. Out of the 46 SDG Indicator
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