SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS.

Environmental, economic and social indicators are used world-wide to report on the condition of human, natural and combined human-natural systems. A wide variety of environmental indicators is presently in use. Indicators provide practical and economical way to track the state of the environment. An environmental indicator is a numerical value that helps provide insight into the state of the environment or human health. These indicators reflect trends in the environment and monitor the progress made in realising environmental policy targets. As such, environmental indicators have become indispensable to policy-makers. However, it is becoming more and more difficult for policy-makers to grasp the relevance and meaning of the existing environmental indicators, given the number and diversity of indicators presently in use. The OECD, with the support of its Member countries, has long been a pioneer in the field of environmental indicators. It has developed and published the first international sets of environmental indicators and uses them regularly in its country environmental performance reviews and other policy analysis work. This paper focuses mainly on environmental indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]