Mandate
of Cluster Groups
The overall mandate of the cluster groups is to help
the Steering Committee identify and select national indicators.
The role of the cluster groups is of an advisory nature, and the
ESDI Steering Committee will determine whether and how to use the
groups' recommendations. Each cluster group will identify and assess
specific indicators within its assigned domain as well as the existing
data sources and data sets to support these indicators. Each group
will recommend to the ESDI Steering Committee a small number of
focused indicators in its domain that will be:
- simple,
- widely credible, and
- easily understood by policy makers and by the public.
The indicators will be consistent with the overall
approach and architecture for environment and sustainable development
indicators as outlined in A
Proposed Approach to Environment and Sustainable Development Indicators
Based on Capital, and the ESDI Technical Guidelines
and Criteria for Indicators (not currently available on website).
Cluster Group Membership
Each cluster group member has been selected on the
basis of his or her particular knowledge or expertise on indicators
or in the cluster group's particular domain (e.g. forestry, land
and soils, air quality). The NRTEE has chosen members in consultation
with the ESDI Steering Committee. They have been drawn from government
(federal, provincial regional and/or local), aboriginal groups,
NGOs, academe, and industry. Each group is composed of approximately
seven to twelve members. Since these indicators are being designed
for long-term reporting by Statistics Canada, each cluster group
will include one representative from this department.
Organization and Mandates of Individual Cluster
Groups
Indicators will be developed to designate the stocks
and quality of three types of key capital necessary for future generations:
produced capital, human capital, and natural capital. Definitions
of the three types of capital are included in the document titled
A Proposed Approach to Environment and Sustainable Development
Indicators Based on Capital.
The emphasis of the cluster groups' work is to reside
on developing indicators that are ready for use in the short term
(i.e. soon after the release of the ESDI Initiative's final report
in March of 2003). However, the groups may also identify areas of
promising work for further research in the near future.
A. Produced Capital
Because of the relatively straightforward nature of
identifying relevant indicators of produced capital, and the ready
availability of existing indicators and data sources to support
them, no cluster group has been formed to address produced capital.
Development of potential indicators of produced capital
will be carried out by Statistics Canada in consultation with individuals,
such as selected ESDI Steering Committee members and expert groups
in Canada. The NRTEE will commission outside research to support
this work, as necessary.
The work will involve the review of existing 'off-the-shelf'
indicators of produced capital. It will also address linkages to
indicators in other domains, including the substitution and the
complementarity of produced capital with other forms of capital.
Statistics Canada will recommend no more than three
indicators of produced capital to the Steering Committee.
B.
Human Capital
This group will review indicators and data sources
and sets on which they rely in the area of human capital, and particularly
in the sub-domains of health and education. It will consider the
relevance of input indicators (investments in education and health)
as well as outcome indicators that measure the result of the investments
in human capital.
The group will consider and advise on the overall
scope for human capital indicators. This will include consideration
of indicators of productive inputs and outcomes (i.e. human capital
as investments resulting in the enhancement of an individual's productivity
in the labour market), indicators related to the enhancement of
the productivity of an individual outside the labour market in non-market
activities, as well as consideration of indicators which reflect
the broader value and concerns of education and health of the Canadian
population. The group may consider population-weighted indicators
if these are relevant and useful.
The group will be asked to consider links to other
indicator domains related to produced and natural capital, including
the issues of substitutability and complementarity with these other
forms of capital. The group will also be asked to examine linkages
to the work of other cluster groups related to human health, such
as the impact of environmental quality on human health, since this
is also included in the mandates of the cluster groups on air quality
and water resources.
For each sub-domain of education and health, the group
will be asked to recommend no more than three indicators, and to
designate one preferred indicator to the Steering Committee.
C. Natural Capital
The area of natural capital has been, for working
and logistical purposes only, further subdivided into the domains
of non-renewable resources, land and soils, renewable resources,
air quality and atmospheric conditions, and water resources.
The mandates of the cluster groups on natural capital
are closely linked and specific indicators may well be relevant
to more than one domain. As a result, a certain amount of overlap
between the recommendations of different cluster groups may occur.
How to integrate these different approaches will be determined by
the Steering Committee.
Each cluster group on natural capital will address
the following broad types of indicator:
- Ecosystem services, defined as those services provided
by the environment considered essential to the long-term sustainability
of the economy. Also, as an indicator of the demand for ecosystem
services, pollutant inputs will be examined where relevant (particularly
for the cluster groups on land and soils, air quality and atmospheric
conditions and water resources);
- Ecosystem health (e.g. biodiversity), which relates
to the health of ecosystem services;
- Quality of natural resource stocks (particularly
with regard to renewable resources);
- Total quantity and commercial (economic) value
of stocks of renewable and non-renewable natural resources.
Some indicators may act as appropriate proxies for
other indicators (e.g. an indicator of resource quality may act
as a proxy for ecosystem health). Further, these indicators may
be in monetary and/or physical units.
Non-Renewable
Resources
The non-renewable resources cluster group will be
asked to focus on identifying a limited number of indicators linked
to stocks of Canada's non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels,
metals, and minerals. These resource stocks will be derived from
Statistics Canada's subsoil asset accounts (part of the Canadian
System of Environmental and Resource Accounts, or CSERA) and other
sources, and will consider both monetary and physical data. Specifically,
the cluster group will be asked to examine the following issues:
- How to best aggregate the various individual mineral
and fossil fuel stocks into a small number of indicators or into
a single indicator,
- Whether to limit the indicators to stocks of economically
exploitable resources, or whether to include the total resource
base, which includes stocks that are not currently commercially
accessible but which may become so in the future (note that Statistics
Canada collects data on both types of stocks),
- Whether or not some non-renewable stocks should
be separated out from any aggregated indicators of stocks, given
their strategic importance (e.g. natural gas), and
- Whether or not to include some indicators that
demonstrate trends in the ease of locating and extracting new
resource reserves (e.g. level of effort over time).
The group will be asked to recommend no more than
three indicators, and to designate one preferred indicator to the
Steering Committee.
Land
and Soils
The land and soils cluster group will investigate
the development of indicators linked to Canada's land stocks. It
will examine three dimensions of land:
- Agricultural land and the productivity of soils;
- The contribution of land as a source of space for
economic activity to operate and for terrestrial ecosystems to
function;
- The health of terrestrial ecosystems (with the
exception of forested ecosystems, which is covered by the cluster
group on renewable resources).
Specifically, this group will be asked to:
- Develop stock indicators linked to the amount
of dependable agricultural land. This work will be based on Statistics
Canada's land account in its system of natural resource accounts,
- Develop indicators of agricultural soil quality
(e.g. physical measures such as erosion, measures of fertility,
and measures of contamination such as by pesticides or fertilizers),
- Examine the feasibility of developing indicators
of land use change, and/or examining stocks of land as 'space'
available for productive and ecosystem services,
- Examine the feasibility of a national indicator
of the health of non-forested terrestrial ecosystems such as wetland
and grasslands ecotypes, with an emphasis on physical degradation
and/or loss (e.g. biological diversity, endangered species, protected
areas), and
- Develop indicators of inputs of soil pollutants
and solid wastes, in terms of the demand created for the ecosystem
service of waste assimilation.
The group will be asked to consider how to incorporate
a spatial dimension into the data underlying the recommended indicators.
For each sub-domain of land use, agricultural soil
and terrestrial ecosystem health, the group will be asked to recommend
no more than three indicators, and to designate one preferred indicator
to the Steering Committee.
Renewable
Resources
This cluster group will be asked to look at two areas
of renewable natural resources - fisheries and forests. The two
broad categories of renewable resources are being taken up by a
single cluster group to build on similarities and complementarities
between the two sectors (e.g. similar population models for resource
stocks). Within these broad resource categories, the group will
consider general aspects of ecosystem health, along with stock quantity
and quality. This group may work in two sub-sections for part of
the time, each devoted to one of the resource categories.
Fisheries and Aquatic Resources: The group
will be asked to:
- Examine the feasibility of developing a national
indicator of marine ecosystem health, particularly related to
biodiversity and other ecosystem factors (e.g. the availability
of spawning habitat, and water or habitat quality), and
- Examine the feasibility of determining stock estimates
and indicators of commercially exploited marine species.
Forests: The group will be asked to:
- Develop a stock estimate and indicators of commercially
exploitable forest resources and determine what additional information
will be needed to determine whether this stock is being used in
a sustainable fashion. Stock estimates may be derived from the
Statistics Canada timber account and other sources of data. As
with the non-renewable resource cluster group, this group will
be asked to examine whether to include indicators of economically
exploitable stocks, or those related to the total resource base
of timber in Canada, a broader definition that includes all land
suitable for timber production and where timber harvesting is
allowed,
- Examine the feasibility of determining an indicator
of the quality of timber stocks (e.g. productivity), and
- Develop a national indicator that best represents
the health of all forest ecosystems (not necessarily ecosystems
containing timber stock), particularly related to biological diversity
and to the environmental services that forests provide.
The group will be asked to consider how to incorporate
a spatial dimension into the data underlying the recommended indicators.
For both fisheries and forests, the group will be
asked to recommend no more than three indicators, and to designate
one preferred indicator to the Steering Committee.
Air
Quality and Atmospheric Conditions
The air quality and atmospheric conditions cluster
group will be asked to address both ambient air quality issues and
issues linked to trans-boundary and global conditions. The group
will be asked to:
- Determine a national indicator of air quality
as determined by its impact on human health (e.g. population weighted
length of exposure to "unhealthy" air),
- Determine indicators of, or related to, emissions
of global importance that may track both ecosystem health (e.g.
global climate change/instability, ozone layer depletion) and
human health (e.g. greenhouse gases as an indicator of fossil
fuel use and ambient air quality). The group will consider how
to incorporate the spatial dimension of air quality and atmospheric
conditions in these indicators, and
- Examine the feasibility of an indicator of airborne
pollutant inputs in terms of the demand created for ecosystem
services (waste disposal and assimilation).
For each sub-domain of air quality related to human
health and of contribution to global atmospheric ecosystem quality,
the group will be asked to develop no more than three indicators,
and to designate one preferred indicator to the Steering Committee.
Water
Resources
The water resources cluster group will be asked to
consider the stock aspect of water, its quality, and its ecosystem
health aspects. The scope of its mandate includes both surface freshwater
and groundwater. Indicators may be determined using Statistics Canada's
work on water balance, which provides a natural resource account
and will likely be completed before the submission of the final
ESDI Initiative report. This account includes quantities of surface
water, precipitation, and stream flows.
Specifically, the group will be asked to:
- Determine a national indicator of water quality
for human health,
- Determine indicators of freshwater ecosystem health,
possibly including indicators related to biological diversity
or water diversion,
- Examine the feasibility of determining stock estimates
and indicators of commercially exploited freshwater species.
- Develop a stock estimate for surface and groundwater
and determine what information will be needed to determine if
the stock is being maintained/used in a sustainable fashion,
- Examine the feasibility of population-weighted
indicators for water quantity and quality, related to demand for
and availability of water. This could be based on how much water
is needed to sustain current and future human activity and the
health of aquatic ecosystems. The group will also consider the
spatial and population aspects of water demand and availability,
- Determine indicators of inputs of pollutants (e.g.
priority toxic substances) in terms of the demand created for
ecosystem services (waste disposal and assimilation).
The group will be asked to identify links between
the indicators it develops, particularly for water quality, and
those under consideration by the group on Human Capital.
The group will be asked to recommend no more
than three indicators, and to designate one preferred indicator
for each sub-domain of water quantity and for water quality to the
Steering Committee.
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