Europe's environment — An Assessment of Assessments

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Last modified: Nov 18, 2011

In support of the 2011 'Environment for Europe' Ministerial Conference in Astana, EEA has prepared 'Europe's environment — An Assessment of Assessments' (EE-AoA). This report provides a comprehensive overview of available sources of environmental information across the region which directly relate to the themes in focus at the Conference, water and related ecosystems, and green economy.

Inspired by the UN Marine "Assessment of Assessments", the 'Europe's Environment — Assessment of Assessments' (EE-AoA) appraises what had been achieved to date with the many European environment assessments available at regional, national and local level and makes recommendations to streamline and improve such activities in future to enhance quality and effectiveness. This process will facilitate the continuous review of the pan-European environment. The added value of this new approach will be to develop a sustainable/regular review process of Europe's environment at various levels, which will be useful for the Astana 2011 conference and thereafter.

Chapter 1 describes the overall setting for the EE-AoA, including the landscape of environmental assessments and their context. Furthermore, it explains the methodology that underpins the assessment of assessments exercise.

Chapter 2 focuses on water and related ecosystems. This chapter highlights that the number of publications recorded over the past years is impressive. However, description of the status remains predominant, while topics such as water scarcity, extreme events, water ecosystems or water management are addressed only in a limited fashion.

Chapter 3 focuses on green economy. As green economy is a relatively new topic and conceptual aspects are still to be clarified, there are only very few dedicated green economy assessments. Nevertheless, a host of sectoral and/or thematic assessments do address issues directly or indirectly related to green economy.

Chapter 4 presents a cross-cutting overview across and beyond the two themes addressed in the previous chapters. It highlights a number of key observations and questions about environmental assessments across the region covering commonalities, institutional responsibilities, processes and content, and scope for improved environmental governance, as well as applicability and transferability of the results.

Chapter 5 contains a set of recommendations to help strengthen the overall suite of environmental assessments in support of the 'Environment for Europe' process.