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For National State of the Environment Reporting Human Settlements Environmental Indicators for National State of the Environment Reporting human settlements Australia: State of the Environment Environmental Indicator Report Peter Newton 1, 2 Joe Flood 2 Mike Berry 2 Kuldeep Bhatia 3 Steve Brown 1 André Cabelli 4 Jeanette Gomboso 5 John Higgins 6 Tony Richardson 7 Veronica Ritchie 5 1 CSIRO Building, Construction and Engineering Graham Road, Highett VIC 3190 2 Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Level 7, 20 Queen Street Melbourne VIC 3000 3 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 6A Traeger Court, Fernhill Park, Bruce ACT 2617 4 André Cabelli and Associates 5 Kilsyth Avenue Toorak VIC 3142 5 CSIRO Land and Water Floreat Park Laboratories, Underwood Avenue Floreat Park WA 6014 6 Environment Australia GPO Box 787, Canberra ACT 2601 7 Transport Research Centre Level 2, 20 Queen Street Melbourne VIC 3000 STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT Environmental Indicators Human Settlements Environment Australia, part of the Department of the Environment © Commonwealth of Australia 1998 This work is copyright. It may be reproduced in whole or in part for study, research or training purposes subject to the inclusion of an acknowledgment of the source and no commercial usage or sale results. Reproduction for purposes other than those listed above requires the written permission of the Department of the Environment. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Assistant Secretary, Corporate Relations and Information Branch, Environment Australia, GPO Box 787, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia. The Commonwealth accepts no responsibility for the opinions expressed in this document, or the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this document. The Commonwealth will not be liable for any loss or damage occasioned directly or indirectly through the use of, or reliance on, the contents of this document. Cataloguing-in publication data: Environmental indicators for national state of the environment reporting – human settlements/Peter Newton ... (et al.) (Australia: State of the environment (Environmental Indicator Reports)) ISBN 0 642 54523 5 of the series 0 642 54526 X 1. Urbanization-Environmental aspects-Australia. 2. City planning-Environmental aspects-Australia. 3. Urban ecology-Evaluation. 4. Environmental indicators-Australia. I. Newton, Peter. II. Title (Series) 363.70’63’0994-dc21 For bibliographic purposes, this document may be cited as: Newton P., J. Flood, M. Berry, K. Bhatia, S. Brown, A. Cabelli, J. Gomboso J. Higgins, T. Richardson & V. Ritchie (1998) Environmental indicators for national state of the environment reporting – Human Settlements, Australia: State of the Environment (Environmental Indicator Reports), Department of the Environment, Canberra. For additional copies of this document or for further information, please contact the Community Information Unit of the Department of the Environment, GPO Box 787, Canberra ACT 2601. Phone, toll free, 1800 803 772, Facsimile 02 6274 1970. This book was printed in Australia on Australian-made, 100% recycled paper (Prologue). Front cover photo: Sydney Harbour, Australia ii Environmental Indicators Human Settlements PREFACE The Commonwealth State of the Environment Reporting system supports the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development and helps Australia meet its international obligations, such as those under Agenda 21 and the OECD environmental performance reviews. The first independent and comprehensive assessment of Australia’s environment, Australia: State of the Environment 1996 was released by the Commonwealth Environment Minister in September of that year. The next step in the evolution of the reporting system is to develop a set of environmental indicators that, properly monitored, will help us track the condition of Australia’s environment and the human activities that affect it. To help develop these indicators, Environment Australia has commissioned reports recommending indicators for each of the seven major themes around which Commonwealth state of the environment reporting is based. The themes are: • human settlements • biodiversity • the atmosphere • the land • inland waters • estuaries and the sea • natural and cultural heritage. An eighth report deals with the use of the recommended indicators by local or regional environmental managers and with the role of the community in indicator work. It is the result of a pilot study carried out by the Australian Local Government Association and Environment Australia. Clearly, none of these themes is independent of the others. The consultants worked together to promote consistent treatment of common issues. In many places issues relevant to more than one theme receive detailed treatment in one report, with cross-referencing to the other reports. Report authors were asked to recommend a comprehensive set of indicators, and were not to be constrained by current environmental monitoring. One consequence of this approach is that many recommendations will not be practical to implement in the short term. They are, however, a scientific basis for longer term planning of environmental monitoring and related activities. These reports are advice to Environment Australia and have been peer reviewed to ensure scientific and technical credibility. They are not necessarily the views of the Commonwealth of Australia. The advice embodied in these reports is being used to advance state of the environment reporting in Australia, and as an input to other initiatives, such as the National Land and Water Resources Audit and the Australian Local Government Association’s Regional Environmental Strategies. iii Environmental Indicators Human Settlements SUMMARY A key set of 104 environmental indicators for human settlements is recommended for Australian state of the environment reporting at the national scale. Of these, 48 relate to the condition of human settlements in relation to their three constituent elements: the physical environment (e.g. air quality), the built environment (e.g. housing affordability), and the human environment (e.g.Environmentally related human health such as (waterborne) diarrhoeal outbreaks); 44 relate to pressures on the physical environment by activities associated with human settlements. Monitoring strategies and approaches to interpreting and analysing each of the indicators are discussed, and possible sources of data are noted. Recommendations are also made for further development of environmental indicators for human settlements. Aims of the study • present a key set of indicators for human settlements for national state of the environment reporting; • ensure that the list of indicators adequately covers all major environmental themes and issues; • examine each indicator in detail to ensure that it is rigorously defined and measurable and in an interpretive framework; • identify suitable monitoring strategies for each indicator – including measurement techniques, appropriate temporal and spatial scales for measurement and reporting, data storage and presentation techniques, and appropriate geographical extent of monitoring; • identify relevant data sources for each indicator, if these are available; • define the baseline information that is needed to properly interpret the behaviour of the indicators. iv Environmental Indicators Human Settlements TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface iii Summary iv Executive Summary 3 Background 7 Commonwealth state of the environment reporting 7 Environmental indicators 8 Scope of human settlements 9 Human settlements indicators 9 Guiding models for indicator development 10 Guiding frameworks 11 Sustainability frameworks 12 Issue and goal-based frameworks 13 Causal frameworks 19 Sectoral and domain frameworks 21 Methodology 22 Selecting indicators 22 Reporting scale: defining human settlements for SoE indicator development 22 Units of measurement 24 Performance standards and thresholds 25 Human Settlement Domains 26 Key resource inputs to human settlements 26 Energy 26 Water 29 Mediating and transforming processes: the dynamics of human settlement 33 Urban design 33 Transport and accessibility 36 Population 38 Environmental livability of human settlements 41 Housing 41 Indoor air quality 44 Environmental health 48 Waste outputs 51 Noise 51 Waste 53 Key Environmental Indicators 58 Recommendations for Research 142 Towards higher level indicator-based models of the built environment and human settlements 142 Domain areas 144 Acknowledgments 151 References 152 1 Environmental Indicators Human Settlements Appendix 1: List of proto indicators 164 Appendix 2: Review process for key indicators 179 List of Acronyms 183 TABLES/FIGURES Table 1.1 Urban environmental management: policy goals, indicators, and policy instruments 14 Table 1.2 City metaphors as sources for human settlements indicators 15 Table 2.1 Number of urban centres and localities, Australia, 1996 23 Table 2.2 Transport pollutant emissions in selected metropolitan areas 25 Table 3.1 Energy Indicators 30 Table 3.2 Use of materials in residential building and other building and construction 42 Table 3.3 Indoor air quality—environmental indicators for human settlement 47 Table 3.4 Proportion of global disability-adjusted life-years associated with environmental exposures—1990 50 Figure 1.1: Extended metabolism model of human settlements 10 Figure 1.2: Models of sustainable development: changing paradigms 12 Figure 1.3: Sustainable development indicator framework 12 Figure 1.4: The pressure–state–response model in environmental reporting 19 Figure
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