4. Indicators for sustainable development

Question 1

What is the difference between an indicator an index?

Answer 1

Indicators measure a single topic.

An index merges multiple indicators.

Question 1

Describe the two ways of measuring sustainable development.

Answer 1

1. Summarize everything in an aggregated index. E.g. human development index, combining many indicators.; Happy Planet Index.
2. Not striving to tell everything but creating an Indicator collection. E.g.: Sustainable Development Goals.

Question 2

Name 1 strength and 1 weakness of indices.

Answer 2

Strengths

• Single number
• Easy to communicate

Weaknesses

• Too simplistic and one dimensional: averages out (if one thing gets better, and one things gets worse, there would be no change)
• Might have missing data and more incomplete
• Calculation methods might be arbitrary (e.g. with normalisation)
• You need to decide what is more important, and weighs more

Question 3

Name 1 strength and 1 weakness of indicator collections

Answer 3

Strengths

• Multi dimensional, holistic (can show nuances and trade offs)
• No calculation errors

Weaknesses

• Difficult to communicate, too much information

Question 4

What does an indicator do?

Answer 4

• Simplify complicated problems
• Give insight in such problems
• Quantify important underlying goals
• Enable to support decision

Question 5

What are two weaknesses of the Red List Index?

Answer 5

• There might be differences in species distribution and vulnerable to presence/absence and monitoring;
• Doesn’t account for invasive species that might have a detrimental impact
• Monitoring might be costly despite working with volunteers
• Doesn’t show drivers.

Question 6

Describe 1 strength and 1 weakness of MSA.

Answer 6

Weakness:

• Hard to decide baseline scenario
• Strongly aggregates biodiversity data and pressures, giving all an equal weight

Strengths:

• Gives info about ecosystem as a whole + interaction between species
• Spatially explicit

Question 7

Name three characteristics of a good indicator

Answer 7

A good indicator is:

• Measurable
• Comparable over time, space, etc.
• Represents what you are trying to measure
• Robust
• Complete; helps capturing full system
• Reproducible (for this it should be well documented and transparent)
• Data should not be expensive
• Sensitive to change
• Easy to understand
• Should be inclusive
• Data should be collected and shared ethically
• Should support decision making

Question 8

What is the EU framework for measuring indicator quality?

Answer 8

• Relevant; linked to the objectives
• Accepted: by staff, stakeholders, scientists
• Credible: unambiguous and easy to interpret
• Easy to monitor
• Robust against manipulation and error