Transcript What are the PICs vulnerable to?

Vulnerability Index for the Environment
Outline of the EVI
Dr Ursula Kaly, Craig Pratt, Dr Russell Howorth, Jackson
Lum, Robin Koshy, Emma Sale-Mario, Prof. Lino Briguglio,
Helena McLeod, Reginald Pal and Susana Schmall
Topics for today:
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Why do we need it and what is it?
Uses
Approach to building the EVI
Outputs
How are we developing the EVI?
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1. Why ?
The Environmental Revolution
began in 1962…
Lots of $$$$x106 have been
spent...
So why are we losing the
Earth anyway?
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Reason 1
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Management has been at very small and very
large scales
– Local, kms, EIAs, Plans, replanting, ad hoc
– Global & Regional, IPCC, CBD, etc
Economies, social / cultural
systems are organised at the
scale of COUNTRIES. To
integrate the environment, we
need information at that scale !
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Reason 2
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Management is too often PROCESS focused
– We limit pollution….
– We stick a conservation area here or there….
Need to focus on OUTCOMES
using monitoring/ auditing
- What do we want our environment to
be like?
- Did that policy / action work?
- If not, adjust !
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We need tools like the EVI
Ensuring the Future
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What is Vulnerability ?
The potential for the attributes of a system
to respond adversely (be damaged) by
hazardous events
(the converse is resilience)
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The hazards / risks
The responders
Looks to the future - not just a statement of
now
What is a
Vulnerability index ?
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A shortcut. A relatively inexpensive way of
characterising the vulnerability of systems (at the
level of a region, country, province)
By doing this as an index, the characterisation can be
comparative because there is a common basis
What is the alternative?
Ad hoc assessments done on a case-by-case basis
for each country - very costly in terms of resources &
time
Single figure & breakdown
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Resilience
Standardises measures
Based on ecology
Audit
Space comparisons
Signal
Understandable
What features should it
Many functions
Impartial
have?
Risk
Works on different scales
Outcomes
Country
Ensuring the Future
Adaptable to other uses
Quick
Has confidence measures in data
Intuitive
Simple as possible
Time comparisons
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Types of Vulnerability indices
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Naming of index:
Based on those systems which RESPOND, not the
hazards themselves
Indices concerned with welfare of human
systems (Economic, Social)
Anthropogenic impacts, Natural disasters, Climate
change / Sea-level, ENSO
Indices concerned with welfare of natural
systems
This is first real attempt: The Environmental
Vulnerability Index
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2. Uses
Ensuring the future !
Allows integration of environment in country’s
development / welfare
Determination of LDC status
What IS the environmental vulnerability of a country
Predictive - types of hazards and approaches to
stewardship
Identify focus for external assistance
Performance indicator for donor funding
Measure of change (every 5 years)
Raising awareness
Monitoring sustainable development
Support SOE reporting
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3. Approach to building
the EVI
 Model
/ Framework
 Smart Indicators
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The Model / Framework
What is vulnerability made of?
There are the Risks and…
 There is Resilience to those risks
Intrinsic resilience: Innate fragility of a
system
Extrinsic resilience: result of hazards which
have acted in the past
 We decided to use “health” or
“degradation” of ecosystems, populations,
resources, species
 Assumption: The more damage sustained
in the past, the less resistance to future
stresses
Types of sub-index
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Risk exposure (REI)
– How much risk to future stresses is there?
– Based on existing rates of stress (narrow time frame)
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Intrinsic Resilience (IRI)
– Features that make up natural resilience
(productivity, height, rates of reproduction)
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Extrinsic Resilience = Environmental
Degradation (EDI)
– What is the current state of the responders?
– Assumes “health” is an indication of ability to
withstand future stresses
– Current health is the result of all previous stresses
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Smart Indicators
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Can’t measure everything, so need indicators
List of 49 indicators quantify / characterise risk
and resilience
Broad based with Indicators for each of the
aspects of vulnerability REI, IRI, EDI, also can
examine categories of risk (A, M, G, B)
‘Smart indicators’ - capture large number of
elements in complex interactive system and
show how the value obtained relates to some
ideal or agreed-upon condition. Often end-point
focused on OUTCOMES
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Put together….
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System for scoring the signals for each
indicator on a common scale (1-7) - data can
be heterogeneous
Option for weighting if required
Signals accumulated into sub-indices and a
final EVI value between 1 and 7
(7 is most vulnerable)
Profiles identify problems
80% of indicators have to be evaluated for
validity
4. Calculating and outputs
Input Screen
Details of Country
Operator / affiliation
General Country Statistics
Indicators
Risk Exposure (REI)
# Years between droughts
# Years between cyclones
Intrinsic Resilience (IRI)
Extrinsic Resilience (EDI)
% Endemicity known species
# Endangered species
1
>30
>31
Score
2
3
4
20-30 10-19 5-9
20-31 10-20 5-10
1
0
1-5
5
3-4
3-5
6
1-22
1-23
7
<1
<2
0.1-2
2-5
6-10 11-15
5+
>15
Weighting & Calculation
Risk Exposure (REI)
Score
# Years between droughts
3
# Years between cyclones
5
Intrinsic Resilience (IRI)
2
Extrinsic Resilience (EDI)
% Endemicity known species
4
# Endangered species
5
Weighting
1
1
5
1
1
Reports
Level 1 Overall EVI = 2.45 [Confidence]
Level 2 REI, IRI & EDI also M, G, B, A
Level 3 Profile of each indicator
Confidence
REI = 3.32
19/27
RI = 5.03
15/20
Tuvalu
Score
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1
4
7
10
13
Tuvalu’s
Profile
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Indicator
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22
25
28
31
34
37
40
43
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Outputs
5. Developing the EVI
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1998 First Design and pilot data
1999 Think Tank for peer review
– Approach was good
– Changes in indicators and some in model
– Testing required and 3 criteria to be passed for the
EVI to be technically acceptable
– To be useful, EVI must be made global
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2000 Revised design, collect Pacific Data
2001-2 Globalising, setting indicators, 100
country database, testing
evi
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Countries involved (40)
Invited to Geneva Meeting: Australia, Bangladesh,
Bolivia, Botswana, Brasil, Costa Rica, Denmark,
Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Kyrgyz
Republic, Maldives, Malta, Nepal, New Zealand,
Norway, Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland,
Thailand (23).
Secured to 80%: Cook Is, Fiji, FSM, Kiribati,
Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, PNG,
Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Trinidad &
Tobago (14).
Part of data: Mauritius, Malta, St. Lucia (3).
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evi
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What can you do?
Help with the 100 country database
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Choose an indicator
Search for published data
Convert to EVI format
Plot values (determine distribution)
Help us to set levels
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