Environment and climate change statistics for Latin America and the Caribbean

According to Manual 61 of ECLAC, Methodological guide to develop environmental and sustainable development indicators in Latin American and Caribbean countries (MDEA/FDES), environmental statistics are statistical series produced regarding the main environmental variables and dynamics in the territory and time such as: water, air, climate, biota (biodiversity), land use, forests, coastlines, marine ecosystems, pollution (breathable air, seawater), solid waste, access to water and basic sanitation, extreme events and disasters, etc.

The FDES 2013 is a flexible, multipurpose conceptual and statistical framework that is comprehensive and integrative in nature. It marks out the scope of environment statistics and provides an organizing structure to guide their collection and compilation and to synthesize data from various subject areas and sources, covering the issues and aspects of the environment that are relevant for analysis, policy- and decision-making. The FDES organizes environmental statistics into six components, each of which is broken down into sub-components and in turn into statistical topics. The six components include: 1) Environmental conditions and quality; 2) Environmental resources and their use; 3) Residuals; 4) Extreme events and disasters; 5) Human settlements and environmental health; and 6) Environmental management and protection. Statistical topics represent the quantifiable aspects of the components and are grouped into sub-components, taking into account the types and sources of statistics needed to describe them.

Structure of FDES

Chapter 1 of the FDES 2013 provides an overview of the main characteristics of environment statistics. It identifies the main uses and user groups and the relationship between environmental data, statistics, accounts and indicators.Chapter 2 presents the conceptual foundation and scope of the FDES. It explains the underlying fundamental concepts and how they have been translated into the six components that constitute the Framework.Chapter 3 provides an expanded discussion of the components, subcomponents and statistical topics of the FDES. It describes the relevance of the statistical topics, the typical data sources and institutional partners. Chapter 4 presents the three-tiered organization of the Basic Set of Environment Statistics, based on the relevance, availability and methodological development of the statistics. Chapter 5 provides examples of the application of the FDES to selected cross-cutting environmental and socioeconomic issues (such as climate change), as well as to specific sectoral or thematic analytical needs (such as agriculture and the environment, water management, energy and environmental sectors).