Developmentrelevance:
As threats to biodiversity mount, the international community is increasingly focusing on conserving diversity. Deforestation is a major cause of loss of biodiversity, and habitat conservation is vital for stemming this loss. Conservation efforts have focused on protecting areas of high biodiversity.

On a global average, more than one-third of all forest is primary forest, i.e. forest of native species where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes have not been significantly disturbed. Primary forests, in particular tropical moist forests, include the most species-rich, diverse terrestrial ecosystems. The decrease of forest area, .11 percent over a ten-year period, is largely due to reclassification of primary forest to "other naturally regenerated forest" because of selective logging and other human interventions.

Destruction of rainforests remains a significant environmental problem Much of what remains of the world's rainforests is in the Amazon basin, where the Amazon Rainforest covers approximately 4 million square kilometers. The regions with the highest tropical deforestation rate are in Central America and tropical Asia. FAO estimates that the decrease of primary forest area, 0.4 percent over a ten-year period, is largely due to reclassification of primary forest to "other naturally regenerated forest" because of selective logging and other human interventions. Large-scale planting of trees is significantly reducing the net loss of forest area globally, and afforestation and natural expansion of forests in some countries and regions have reduced the net loss of forest area significantly at the global level.

Forests cover about 31 percent of total land area of the world; the world's total forest area is just over 4 billion hectares. On a global average, more than one-third of all forest is primary forest, i.e. forest of native species where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes have not been significantly disturbed. Primary forests, in particular tropical moist forests, include the most species-rich, diverse terrestrial ecosystems.

National parks, game reserves, wilderness areas and other legally established protected areas cover more than 10 percent of the total forest area in most countries and regions. FAO estimates that around 10 million people are employed in forest management and conservation - but many more are directly dependent on forests for their livelihoods. Close to 1.2 billion hectares of forest are managed primarily for the production of wood and non-wood forest products. An additional 25 percent of forest area is designated for multiple uses - in most cases including the production of wood and non-wood forest products. The area designated primarily for productive purposes has decreased by more than 50 million hectares since 1990 as forests have been designated for other purposes.

IndicatorName: Forest area (% of land area)

Limitationsandexceptions:
FAO has been collecting and analyzing data on forest area since 1946. This is done at intervals of 5-10 years as part of the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA). FAO reports data for 229 countries and territories; for the remaining 56 small island states and territories where no information is provided, a report is prepared by FAO using existing information and a literature search. The data are aggregated at sub-regional, regional and global levels by the FRA team at FAO, and estimates are produced by straight summation.

The lag between the reference year and the actual production of data series as well as the frequency of data production varies between countries. Deforested areas do not include areas logged but intended for regeneration or areas degraded by fuelwood gathering, acid precipitation, or forest fires. Negative numbers indicate an increase in forest area.

Data includes areas with bamboo and palms; forest roads, firebreaks and other small open areas; forest in national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas such as those of specific scientific, historical, cultural or spiritual interest; windbreaks, shelterbelts and corridors of trees with an area of more than 0.5 hectares and width of more than 20 meters; plantations primarily used for forestry or protective purposes, such as rubber-wood plantations and cork oak stands. Data excludes tree stands in agricultural production systems, such as fruit plantations and agroforestry systems. Forest area also excludes trees in urban parks and gardens. The proportion of forest area to total land area is calculated and changes in the proportion are computed to identify trends.

Longdefinition: Forest area is land under natural or planted stands of trees of at least 5 meters in situ, whether productive or not, and excludes tree stands in agricultural production systems (for example, in fruit plantations and agroforestry systems) and trees in urban parks and gardens.

Othernotes: The world and regional aggregate series do not include data from countries that no longer exist.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Forest is determined both by the presence of trees and the absence of other predominant land uses. The trees should reach a minimum height of 5 meters in situ. Areas under reforestation that have not yet reached but are expected to reach a canopy cover of 10 percent and a tree height of 5 meters are included, as are temporarily unstocked areas, resulting from human intervention or natural causes, which are expected to regenerate.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provides detail information on forest cover, and adjusted estimates of forest cover. The survey uses a uniform definition of forest. Although FAO provides a breakdown of forest cover between natural forest and plantation for developing countries, forest data used to derive this indictor data does not reflect that breakdown. Total land area does not include inland water bodies such as major rivers and lakes. Variations from year to year may be due to updated or revised data rather than to change in area. The indictor is derived by dividing total area under forest of a country by country's total land area, and multiplying by 100.


Aggregationmethod: Weighted average

Developmentrelevance:
The commodities covered in the computation of indices of agricultural production are all crops and livestock products originating in each country. Practically all products are covered, with the main exception of fodder crops. The category of food production includes commodities that are considered edible and that contain nutrients. Accordingly, coffee and tea are excluded along with inedible commodities because, although edible, they have practically no nutritive value.

It should be noted that when calculating indices of agricultural, food and nonfood production, all intermediate primary inputs of agricultural origin are deducted. However, for indices of any other commodity group, only inputs originating from within the same group are deducted; thus, only seed is removed from the group "crops" and from all crop subgroups, such as cereals, oil crops, etc.; and both feed and seed originating from within the livestock sector (e.g. milk feed, hatching eggs) are removed from the group "livestock products". For the main two livestock subgroups, namely, meat and milk, only feed originating from the respective subgroup is removed.

Crop production data refer to the actual harvested production from the field or orchard and gardens, excluding harvesting and threshing losses and that part of crop not harvested for any reason. Production therefore includes the quantities of the commodity sold in the market (marketed production) and the quantities consumed or used by the producers (auto-consumption).

IndicatorName: Food production index (2014-2016 = 100)

License_Type: CC BY-4.0

Limitationsandexceptions: Agricultural data are collected by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) from official national sources through the questionnaire and are supplemented with information from official secondary data sources. The secondary sources cover official country data from websites of national ministries, national publications and related country data reported by various international organizations. The FAO tries to impose standard definitions and reporting methods, but complete consistency across countries and over time is not possible. Data on agricultural employment, in particular, should be used with caution. In many countries much agricultural employment is informal and unrecorded, including substantial work performed by women and children. To address some of these concerns, this indicator is heavily footnoted in the database in sources, definition, and coverage.

Longdefinition: Food production index covers food crops that are considered edible and that contain nutrients. Coffee and tea are excluded because, although edible, they have no nutritive value.

Periodicity: Annual

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
The agricultural production index is prepared by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The FAO indices of agricultural production show the relative level of the aggregate volume of agricultural production for each year in comparison with the base period 2014-2016. They are based on the sum of price-weighted quantities of different agricultural commodities produced after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed weighted in a similar manner. The resulting aggregate represents, therefore, disposable production for any use except as seed and feed. All the indices at the country, regional and world levels are calculated by the Laspeyres formula*. Production quantities of each commodity are weighted by 2014-2016 average international commodity prices and summed for each year. To obtain the index, the aggregate for a given year is divided by the average aggregate for the base period 2014-2016. Since the FAO indices are based on the concept of agriculture as a single enterprise, amounts of seed and feed are subtracted from the production data to avoid double counting, once in the production data and once with the crops or livestock produced from them. Deductions for seed (in the case of eggs, for hatching) and for livestock and poultry feed apply to both domestically produced and imported commodities. They cover only primary agricultural products destined to animal feed (e.g. maize, potatoes, milk, etc.). Processed and semi-processed feed items such as bran, oilcakes, meals and molasses have been completely excluded from the calculations at all stages. It should be noted that when calculating indices of agricultural, food and nonfood production, all intermediate primary inputs of agricultural origin are deducted. However, for indices of any other commodity group, only inputs originating from within the same group are deducted; thus, only seed is removed from the group "crops" and from all crop subgroups, such as cereals, oil crops, etc.; and both feed and seed originating from within the livestock sector (e.g. milk feed, hatching eggs) are removed from the group "livestock products". For the main two livestock subgroups, namely, meat and milk, only feed originating from the respective subgroup is removed. Indices which take into account deductions for feed and seed are referred to as ''net''. Indices calculated without any deductions for feed and seed are referred to as ''gross". The "international commodity prices" are used in order to avoid the use of exchange rates for obtaining continental and world aggregates, and also to improve and facilitate international comparative analysis of productivity at the national level. These" international prices," expressed in so-called "international dollars," are derived using a Geary-Khamis formula** for the agricultural sector. This method assigns a single "price" to each commodity. For example, one metric ton of wheat has the same price regardless of the country where it was produced. The currency unit in which the prices are expressed has no influence on the indices published. The commodities covered in the computation of indices of agricultural production are all crops and livestock products originating in each country. Practically all products are covered, with the main exception of fodder crops.

* A Laspeyres Index is known as a "base-weighted" or "fixed-weighted" index because the price increases are weighted by the quantities in the base period. The Consumer Price Index is an example of a Laspeyres Index. http://www.usna.edu/Users/econ/rbrady/312%20Materials/LaspeyresCalc.pdf
** Geary-Khamis formula is an aggregation method in which category "international prices" (reflecting relative category values) and country purchasing power parities (PPPs), (depicting relative country price levels) are estimated simultaneously from a system of linear equations. http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=5528

Topic: Environment: Food Security


IndicatorName: Control of Corruption: Estimate

Longdefinition: Control of Corruption captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as "capture" of the state by elites and private interests. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.

Source: Detailed documentation of the WGI, interactive tools for exploring the data, and full access to the underlying source data available at www.govindicators.org.The WGI are produced by Daniel Kaufmann (Natural Resource Governance Institute and Brookings Institution) and Aart Kraay (World Bank Development Research Group).  Please cite Kaufmann, Daniel, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi (2010).  "The Worldwide Governance Indicators:  Methodology and Analytical Issues".  World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5430 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1682130).  The WGI do not reflect the official views of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, the Brookings Institution, the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.

Topic: Governance: Stability & Rule of Law


IndicatorName: Access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking  (% of population)

Longdefinition: Access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking is the proportion of total population primarily using clean cooking fuels and technologies for cooking. Under WHO guidelines, kerosene is excluded from clean cooking fuels.

Source: IEA, IRENA, UNSD, World Bank, WHO. 2023. Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report. World Bank, Washington DC. © World Bank. License: Creative Commons Attribution—NonCommercial 3.0 IGO (CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO).

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: Data for access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking are based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Household Energy Database. They are collected among different sources: only data from nationally representative household surveys (including national censuses) were used. Survey sources include Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), Multi-Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), the World Health Survey (WHS), other nationally developed and implemented surveys, and various government agencies (for example, ministries of energy and utilities). Trends in the proportion of the population using each fuel type are estimated using a single multivariate hierarchical model, with urban and rural disaggregation. Estimates for overall ‘polluting’ fuels (unprocessed biomass, charcoal, coal, and kerosene) and ‘clean’ fuels (gaseous fuels, electricity, as well as an aggregation of any other clean fuels like alcohol) are produced by aggregating estimates of relevant fuel types. The model was used to derive clean fuel use estimates for 191 countries (ref. Stoner, O., Shaddick, G., Economou, T., Gumy, S., Lewis, J., Lucio, I., Ruggeri, G. and Adair-Rohani, H. (2020), Global household energy model: a multivariate hierarchical approach to estimating trends in the use of polluting and clean fuels for cooking. J. R. Stat. Soc. C, 69: 815-839). Countries classified by the World Bank as high income (57 countries) in the 2022 fiscal year are assumed to have universal access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking.

Topic: Social: Access to Services


IndicatorName: Energy intensity level of primary energy (MJ/$2017 PPP GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions: Energy intensity level is only an imperfect proxy to energy efficiency indicator and it can be affected by a number of factors not necessarily linked to pure efficiency such as climate.

Longdefinition: Energy intensity level of primary energy is the ratio between energy supply and gross domestic product measured at purchasing power parity. Energy intensity is an indication of how much energy is used to produce one unit of economic output. Lower ratio indicates that less energy is used to produce one unit of output.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: This indicator is obtained by dividing total primary energy supply over gross domestic product measured in constant 2017 US dollars at purchasing power parity.

Topic: Environment: Energy use & security


Developmentrelevance:
Maintaining reliable and secure electricity services while seeking to rapidly decarbonize power systems is a key challenge for countries throughout the world. More and more countries are becoming increasing dependent on reliable and secure electricity supplies to underpin economic growth and community prosperity. This reliance is set to grow as more efficient and less carbon intensive forms of power are developed and deployed to help decarbonize economies.

Energy is necessary for creating the conditions for economic growth. It is impossible to operate a factory, run a shop, grow crops or deliver goods to consumers without using some form of energy. Access to electricity is particularly crucial to human development as electricity is, in practice, indispensable for certain basic activities, such as lighting, refrigeration and the running of household appliances, and cannot easily be replaced by other forms of energy. Individuals' access to electricity is one of the most clear and un-distorted indication of a country's energy poverty status.

Electricity access is increasingly at the forefront of governments' preoccupations, especially in the developing countries. As a consequence, a lot of rural electrification programs and national electrification agencies have been created in these countries to monitor more accurately the needs and the status of rural development and electrification.

Use of energy is important in improving people's standard of living. But electricity generation also can damage the environment. Whether such damage occurs depends largely on how electricity is generated. For example, burning coal releases twice as much carbon dioxide - a major contributor to global warming - as does burning an equivalent amount of natural gas.

IndicatorName: Access to electricity (% of population)

Longdefinition: Access to electricity is the percentage of population with access to electricity. Electrification data are collected from industry, national surveys and international sources.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: The World Bank’s Global Electrification Database (GED) compiles nationally representative household survey data, and occasionally census data, from sources going back as far as 1990. The database also incorporates data from the Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC), Middle East and North Africa Poverty Database (MNAPOV) and the Europe and Central Asia Poverty Database (ECAPOV), which are based on similar surveys. At the time of this analysis, the GED contained 1,375 surveys for 149 countries in 1990-2021.


Developmentrelevance:
Since the beginning of the 21st century, coal has been the fastest-growing global energy source; it currently provides about 40 percent of the world's electricity needs. Coal is the second source of primary energy in the world after oil, and the first source of electricity generation.. The last decade's growth in coal use has been driven by the economic growth of developing economies, mainly China. Irrespective of its economic benefits for the countries, the environmental impact of coal use, especially that coming from carbon dioxide emissions, is significant, and efforts are underway globally to build more efficient plants, to retrofit old plants and to decommission the oldest and least efficient coal plants.

Use of energy is important in improving people's standard of living. But electricity generation also can damage the environment. Whether such damage occurs depends largely on how electricity is generated. For example, burning coal releases twice as much carbon dioxide - a major contributor to global warming - as does burning an equivalent amount of natural gas.

Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions result primarily from fossil fuel combustion and cement manufacturing. In combustion different fossil fuels release different amounts of carbon dioxide for the same level of energy use: oil releases about 50 percent more carbon dioxide than natural gas, and coal releases about twice as much. Nuclear energy does not generate carbon dioxide emissions, but it produces other dangerous waste products.

Generalcomments: Electricity production shares may not sum to 100 percent because other sources of generated electricity (such as geothermal, solar, and wind) are not shown. Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

IndicatorName: Electricity production from coal sources (% of total)

License_Type: Use and distribution of these data are subject to IEA terms and conditions.

Limitationsandexceptions: IEA occasionally revises its time series to reflect political changes. For example, the IEA has constructed historical energy statistics for countries of the former Soviet Union. In addition, energy statistics for other countries have undergone continuous changes in coverage or methodology in recent years as more detailed energy accounts have become available. Breaks in series are therefore unavoidable.

Longdefinition: Sources of electricity refer to the inputs used to generate electricity. Coal refers to all coal and brown coal, both primary (including hard coal and lignite-brown coal) and derived fuels (including patent fuel, coke oven coke, gas coke, coke oven gas, and blast furnace gas). Peat is also included in this category.

Source: IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2014 (https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics), subject to https://www.iea.org/terms/

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: Electricity production is total number of kWh generated by power plants separated into electricity plants and CHP plants. The International Energy Agency (IEA) compiles data on energy inputs used to generate electricity. IEA data for countries that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are based on national energy data adjusted to conform to annual questionnaires completed by OECD member governments. In addition, estimates are sometimes made to complete major aggregates from which key data are missing, and adjustments are made to compensate for differences in definitions. The IEA makes these estimates in consultation with national statistical offices, oil companies, electric utilities, and national energy experts.


Generalcomments: Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

IndicatorName: Renewable electricity output (% of total electricity output)

Longdefinition: Renewable electricity is the share of electrity generated by renewable power plants in total electricity generated by all types of plants.

Source: IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2018 (https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics), subject to https://www.iea.org/terms/


IndicatorName: Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption)

Longdefinition: Renewable energy consumption is the share of renewables energy in total final energy consumption.


Developmentrelevance:
Modern energy services are crucial to a country's economic development. Access to modern energy is essential for the provision of clean water, sanitation and healthcare and for the provision of reliable and efficient lighting, heating, cooking, mechanical power, and transport and telecommunications services.

Governments in many countries are increasingly aware of the urgent need to make better use of the world's energy resources. Improved energy efficiency is often the most economic and readily available means of improving energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

IndicatorName: Energy imports, net (% of energy use)

Limitationsandexceptions: The IEA makes these estimates in consultation with national statistical offices, oil companies, electric utilities, and national energy experts. The IEA occasionally revises its time series to reflect political changes, and energy statistics undergo continual changes in coverage or methodology as more detailed energy accounts become available. Breaks in series are therefore unavoidable.

Longdefinition: Net energy imports are estimated as energy use less production, both measured in oil equivalents. A negative value indicates that the country is a net exporter. Energy use refers to use of primary energy before transformation to other end-use fuels, which is equal to indigenous production plus imports and stock changes, minus exports and fuels supplied to ships and aircraft engaged in international transport.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Energy data are compiled by the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA data for economies that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are based on national energy data adjusted to conform to annual questionnaires completed by OECD member governments.

A negative value in energy imports indicates that the country is a net exporter. Energy use refers to use of primary energy before transformation to other end-use fuels, which is equal to indigenous production plus imports and stock changes, minus exports and fuels supplied to ships and aircraft engaged in international transport.


Developmentrelevance:
Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources because they take millions of years to form, and reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being made. In developing economies growth in energy use is closely related to growth in the modern sectors - industry, motorized transport, and urban areas - but energy use also reflects climatic, geographic, and economic factors (such as the relative price of energy). Energy use has been growing rapidly in low- and middle-income economies, but high-income economies still use almost five times as much energy on a per capita basis.

Total energy use refers to the use of primary energy before transformation to other end-use fuels (such as electricity and refined petroleum products). It includes energy from combustible renewables and waste - solid biomass and animal products, gas and liquid from biomass, and industrial and municipal waste. Biomass is any plant matter used directly as fuel or converted into fuel, heat, or electricity.

IndicatorName: Fossil fuel energy consumption (% of total)

Longdefinition: Fossil fuel comprises coal, oil, petroleum, and natural gas products.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Energy data are compiled by the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA data for economies that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are based on national energy data adjusted to conform to annual questionnaires completed by OECD member governments.

Data for combustible renewables and waste are often based on small surveys or other incomplete information and thus give only a broad impression of developments and are not strictly comparable across countries. The IEA reports include country notes that explain some of these differences. All forms of energy - primary energy and primary electricity - are converted into oil equivalents. A notional thermal efficiency of 33 percent is assumed for converting nuclear electricity into oil equivalents and 100 percent efficiency for converting hydroelectric power.


Developmentrelevance:
In developing economies growth in energy use is closely related to growth in the modern sectors - industry, motorized transport, and urban areas - but energy use also reflects climatic, geographic, and economic factors (such as the relative price of energy). Energy use has been growing rapidly in low- and middle-income economies, but high-income economies still use almost five times as much energy on a per capita basis.

Governments in many countries are increasingly aware of the urgent need to make better use of the world's energy resources. Improved energy efficiency is often the most economic and readily available means of improving energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

IndicatorName: Energy use (kg of oil equivalent per capita)

Longdefinition: Energy use refers to use of primary energy before transformation to other end-use fuels, which is equal to indigenous production plus imports and stock changes, minus exports and fuels supplied to ships and aircraft engaged in international transport.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Total energy use refers to the use of primary energy before transformation to other end-use fuels (such as electricity and refined petroleum products). It includes energy from combustible renewables and waste - solid biomass and animal products, gas and liquid from biomass, and industrial and municipal waste. Biomass is any plant matter used directly as fuel or converted into fuel, heat, or electricity. World Bank population estimates are used to calculate per capita data.

Energy data are compiled by the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA data for economies that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are based on national energy data adjusted to conform to annual questionnaires completed by OECD member governments.

Data for combustible renewables and waste are often based on small surveys or other incomplete information and thus give only a broad impression of developments and are not strictly comparable across countries. The IEA reports include country notes that explain some of these differences. All forms of energy - primary energy and primary electricity - are converted into oil equivalents. A notional thermal efficiency of 33 percent is assumed for converting nuclear electricity into oil equivalents and 100 percent efficiency for converting hydroelectric power.


Developmentrelevance:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is naturally occurring gas fixed by photosynthesis into organic matter. A byproduct of fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning, it is also emitted from land use changes and other industrial processes. It is the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas that affects the Earth's radiative balance. It is the reference gas against which other greenhouse gases are measured, thus having a Global Warming Potential of 1.

Burning of carbon-based fuels since the industrial revolution has rapidly increased concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing the rate of global warming and causing anthropogenic climate change. It is also a major source of ocean acidification since it dissolves in water to form carbonic acid.

The addition of man-made greenhouse gases to the Atmosphere disturbs the earth's radiative balance. This is leading to an increase in the earth's surface temperature and to related effects on climate, sea level rise and world agriculture. Emissions of CO2 are from burning oil, coal and gas for energy use, burning wood and waste materials, and from industrial processes such as cement production.

The carbon dioxide emissions of a country are only an indicator of one greenhouse gas. For a more complete idea of how a country influences climate change, gases such as methane and nitrous oxide should be taken into account. This is particularly important in agricultural economies.

Emission intensity is the average emission rate of a given pollutant from a given source relative to the intensity of a specific activity. Emission intensities are also used to compare the environmental impact of different fuels or activities. The related terms - emission factor and carbon intensity - are often used interchangeably.

The environmental effects of carbon dioxide are of significant interest. Carbon dioxide (CO2) makes up the largest share of the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming and climate change. Converting all other greenhouse gases (methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)) to carbon dioxide (or CO2) equivalents makes it possible to compare them and to determine their individual and total contributions to global warming. The Kyoto Protocol, an environmental agreement adopted in 1997 by many of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is working towards curbing CO2 emissions globally.

IndicatorName: CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita)

License_Type: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Longdefinition: Carbon dioxide emissions are those stemming from the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement. They include carbon dioxide produced during consumption of solid, liquid, and gas fuels and gas flaring.

Source: Emissions data are sourced from Climate Watch Historical GHG Emissions (1990-2020). 2023. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Available online at: https://www.climatewatchdata.org/ghg-emissions

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: Carbon dioxide emissions, largely by-products of energy production and use, account for the largest share of greenhouse gases, which are associated with global warming. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions result primarily from fossil fuel combustion and cement manufacturing. In combustion different fossil fuels release different amounts of carbon dioxide for the same level of energy use: oil releases about 50 percent more carbon dioxide than natural gas, and coal releases about twice as much. Cement manufacturing releases about half a metric ton of carbon dioxide for each metric ton of cement produced. Data for carbon dioxide emissions include gases from the burning of fossil fuels and cement manufacture, but excludes emissions from land use such as deforestation.

Topic: Environment: Emissions & pollution


IndicatorName: Methane emissions (metric tons of CO2 equivalent per capita)

License_Type: Data from CAIT carry a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Longdefinition: Methane emissions are those stemming from human activities such as agriculture and from industrial methane production.


IndicatorName: Nitrous oxide emissions (metric tons of CO2 equivalent per capita)

Longdefinition: Nitrous oxide emissions are emissions from agricultural biomass burning, industrial activities, and livestock management.


Developmentrelevance: Air pollution places a major burden on world health. In many places, including cities but also in rural areas, exposure to air pollution is the main environmental threat to health, responsible for 6.5 million deaths per year, about one every 5 seconds. Around 40 percent of the world’s people rely on household burning of wood, charcoal, dung, crop waste, or coal to meet basic energy needs. Cooking and heating with solid fuels create harmful smoke and particles that fill homes and the surrounding environment. Household air pollution from cooking and heating with solid fuels is responsible for 2.9 million deaths a year. Long-term exposure to high levels of fine particles in the air contributes to a range of health effects, including respiratory diseases, lung cancer, and heart disease, resulting in 4.2 million deaths annually. Not only does exposure to air pollution affect the health of the world’s people, it also carries huge economic costs and represents a drag on development, particularly for low and middle income countries and vulnerable segments of the population such as children and the elderly.

IndicatorName: PM2.5 air pollution, mean annual exposure (micrograms per cubic meter)

Limitationsandexceptions: Pollutant concentrations are sensitive to local conditions, and even monitoring sites in the same city may register different levels. Direct monitoring of PM2.5 is still rare in most parts of the world, and measurement protocols and standards are not the same for all countries. These data should be considered only a general indication of air quality, intended to inform cross-country comparisons of the health risks due to particulate matter pollution. The guideline set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for PM2.5 is that annual mean concentrations should not exceed 10 micrograms per cubic meter, representing the lower range over which adverse health effects have been observed. The WHO has also recommended guideline values for emissions of PM2.5 from burning fuels in households.

Longdefinition: Population-weighted exposure to ambient PM2.5 pollution is defined as the average level of exposure of a nation's population to concentrations of suspended particles measuring less than 2.5 microns in aerodynamic diameter, which are capable of penetrating deep into the respiratory tract and causing severe health damage. Exposure is calculated by weighting mean annual concentrations of PM2.5 by population in both urban and rural areas.

Source: Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network. 2021. Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (GBD 2019) Air Pollution Exposure Estimates 1990-2019. Seattle, United States of America: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). https://doi.org/10.6069/70JS-NC54

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: A. van Donkelaar, R.V. Martin, M. Brauer, N.C. Hsu, R.A. Kahn, R.C. Levy, A. Lyapustin, A.M. Sayer, D.M. Winker, "Global Estimates of Fine Particulate Matter using a Combined Geophysical-Statistical Method with Information from Satellites, Models, and Monitors," Environ. Sci. Technol 50, no. 7 (2016): 3762–3772; GBD 2017 Risk Factors Collaborators, "Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 194 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017," Lancet 392 (2018): 1923-1994; Shaddick G, Thomas M, Amini H, Broday DM, Cohen A, Frostad J, Green A, Gumy S, Liu Y, Martin RV, Prüss-Üstün A, Simpson D, van Donkelaar A, Brauer M. Data integration for the assessment of population exposure to ambient air pollution for global burden of disease assessment. Environ Sci Technol. 2018 Jun 29. Data provided by Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle. Data on exposure to ambient air pollution are derived from estimates of annual concentrations of very fine particulates produced by the Global Burden of Disease study, an international scientific effort led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Estimates of annual concentrations are generated by combining data from atmospheric chemistry transport models, satellite observations of aerosols in the atmosphere, and ground-level monitoring of particulates. Exposure to concentrations of PM2.5 in both urban and rural areas is weighted by population and is aggregated at the national level.


IndicatorName: Cooling Degree Days

Longdefinition: A cooling degree day (CDD) is a measurement designed to track energy use. It is the number of degrees that a day's average temperature is above 18°C (65°F). Daily degree days are accumulated to obtain annual values.

Othernotes: Refer to the Climate Knowledge Portal for important disclaimer information: https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/about#disclaimer. Based on RCP 8.5 scenario.

Source: World Bank, Climate Change Knowledge Portal. https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: Cooling degree days can describe the overall need for cooling. For example, the highest temperature in a day was 32°C and the lowest temperature was 19°C. Then, the mean temperature for that day was (32+19)/2 =25.5. The result is above 18°C, so the cooling degree days are 25.5-18 = 7.5°C.

Topic: Environment: Environment/climate risk & resilience

Unitofmeasure: Celsius


Generalcomments: Global OHI assessments require synthesizing highly heterogeneous information that is freely available from nearly one hundred sources. Data from each source are prepared and modeled using freely available coding and version control software. You may freely download and use any data, code, or instructional guides, but please see our Citation Policy.

IndicatorName: Coastal protection

Source: Ocean Health Index. https://ohi-science.org/

Topic: Environment: Natural capital endowment and management

Unitofmeasure: Percentage


IndicatorName: GHG net emissions/removals by LUCF (Mt of CO2 equivalent)

Longdefinition: GHG net emissions/removals by LUCF refers to changes in atmospheric levels of all greenhouse gases attributable to forest and land-use change activities, including but not limited to (1) emissions and removals of CO2 from decreases or increases in biomass stocks due to forest management, logging, fuelwood collection, etc.; (2) conversion of existing forests and natural grasslands to other land uses; (3) removal of CO2 from the abandonment of formerly managed lands (e.g. croplands and pastures); and (4) emissions and removals of CO2 in soil associated with land-use change and management. For Annex-I countries under the UNFCCC, these data are drawn from the annual GHG inventories submitted to the UNFCCC by each country; for non-Annex-I countries, data are drawn from the most recently submitted National Communication where available. Because of differences in reporting years and methodologies, these data are not generally considered comparable across countries. Data are in million metric tons.

Source: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.


IndicatorName: Heating Degree Days

Longdefinition: A heating degree day (HDD) is a measurement designed to track energy use. It is the number of degrees that a day's average temperature is below 18°C (65°F). Daily degree days are accumulated to obtain annual values.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: Heating degree days can describe the overall need for heating. For example, the highest temperature in a day was 1°C and the lowest temperature was -4°C. Then, the mean temperature for that day was (1-4)/2 =-1.5. The result is below 18°C, so the heating degree days are 18-(-1.5) = 19.5°C.


IndicatorName: Heat Index 35

Longdefinition: Total count of days per year where the daily mean Heat Index rose above 35°C. A Heat Index is a measure of how hot it feels once humidity is factored in with air temperature.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: These days represent extreme heat, which may cause illnesses, including heat cramps, fainting, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and death.


Longdefinition: The SPEI fulfills the requirements of a drought index since its multi-scalar character enables it to be used by different scientific disciplines to detect, monitor, and analyze droughts. Like the sc-PDSI and the SPI, the SPEI can measure drought severity according to its intensity and duration, and can identify the onset and end of drought episodes. The SPEI allows comparison of drought severity through time and space, since it can be calculated over a wide range of climates, as can the SPI.

Othernotes: The data presented in the Sovereign ESG Data Portal is the 12-month time-scale.

Source: Global SPEI database (SPEIbase). https://spei.csic.es/database.html

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: The Global SPEI database, SPEIbase, offers long-time, robust information about drought conditions at the global scale, with a 0.5 degrees spatial resolution and a monthly time resolution. It has a multi-scale character, providing SPEI time-scales between 1 and 48 months.


Generalcomments: UN-Water maintains this website (the “Site”) as a courtesy to those who may choose to access it (“Users”). The information presented herein is for informative purposes only. UN-Water grants permission to Users to visit the Site and to download and copy the information, documents, and materials (collectively, “Materials”) from the Site for the User’s personal, non-commercial use, without any right to resell or redistribute them or to compile or create derivative works therefrom, subject to the terms and conditions outlined below, and also subject to more specific restrictions that may apply to specific Material within this Site.

IndicatorName: Proportion of bodies of water with good ambient water quality

Source: UN Water. https://www.unwater.org/


Generalcomments: MODIS data and products acquired through the LP DAAC have no restrictions on subsequent use, sale, or redistribution.

IndicatorName: Land Surface Temperature

Source: European Space Agency. https://climate.esa.int/en/projects/land-surface-temperature/


Aggregationmethod: Sum

Developmentrelevance:
As threats to biodiversity mount, the international community is increasingly focusing on conserving diversity. The number of threatened species is an important measure of the immediate need for conservation in an area. Global analyses of the status of threatened species have been carried out for few groups of organisms. Only for mammals, birds, and amphibians has the status of virtually all known species been assessed.

Threatened species are defined using the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) classification: endangered (in danger of extinction and unlikely to survive if causal factors continue operating) and vulnerable (likely to move into the endangered category in the near future if causal factors continue operating).

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plant and animal species. The IUCN draws on and mobilizes a network of scientists and partner organizations working in almost every country in the world, who collectively hold what is likely the most complete scientific knowledge base on the biology and conservation status of species.

the IUCN Red List covers a comprehensive assessment of the conservation status of the world's 5,488 mammal species, including global summary statistics, individual species accounts/threat category, range map, ecology information, and some other data. Mammal species are found spread across the globe, with the exception of the land mass of Antarctica. Nearly one-quarter of the world's mammal species are known to be globally threatened or extinct, 63 percent are known to not be threatened, and 15 percent have insufficient data to determine their threat status. Habitat loss, affecting over 2,000 mammal species, is the greatest threat globally. The second greatest threat is utilization which is affecting over 900 mammal species, mainly those in Asia.

Direct threats to species are the proximate human activities or processes that have impacted, are impacting, or may impact the status of the taxon being assessed (e.g., unsustainable fishing or logging). Direct threats are synonymous with sources of stress and proximate pressures. Threats can be past (historical, unlikely to return or historical, likely to return), ongoing, and/or likely to occur in the future.

IndicatorName: Mammal species, threatened

Limitationsandexceptions:
Reporting the proportion of threatened species on the Red List is complicated by the fact that not all species groups have been fully evaluated, and also by the fact that some species have so little information available that they can only be assessed as Data Deficient (DD). For many of the incompletely evaluated groups, assessment efforts have focused on species that are likely to be threatened; therefore any percentage of threatened species reported for these groups would be heavily biased (i.e., the percentage of threatened species would likely be an overestimate).

Some parts of the world, such as the Andes, Central and West Africa, Angola, parts of South and Southeast Asia, and Melanesia, still have sparse information available of their mammal faunas. In addition, many species' names, especially in the tropics, actually represent complexes of several species that have not yet been resolved. The information on the relative importance of different threatening processes to mammal species is incomplete. IUCN codes all threats that appear to have an important impact, but not their relative importance for each species.

Since IUCN has evaluated extinction risk for less than 5 percent of the world's described species, IUCN cannot provide an overall estimate for how many of the planet's species are threatened. For those groups that have been comprehensively evaluated, the proportion of threatened species can be calculated, but the number of threatened species is often uncertain because it is not known whether Data Deficient species are actually threatened or not.

Due to variations in consistency and methods of collection, data quality is highly variable across countries. Some countries update their information more frequently than others, some have more accurate data on extent of coverage, and many underreport the number or extent of protected areas. Also, because of differences in definitions, reporting practices, and reporting periods, cross-country comparability of threatened species is limited.

In order to ensure global uniformity when describing the habitat in which a taxon (a taxonomic group of any rank) occurs, the threats to a taxon, what conservation actions are in place or are needed, and whether or not the taxon is utilized, a set of standard terms, called Classification Schemes, are being developed, for documenting taxonomy on the IUCN Red List.

Longdefinition: Mammal species are mammals excluding whales and porpoises. Threatened species are the number of species classified by the IUCN as endangered, vulnerable, rare, indeterminate, out of danger, or insufficiently known.

Source: United Nations Environmental Program and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and International Union for Conservation of Nature, Red List of Threatened Species.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Species assessed as Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN) or Vulnerable (VU) are referred to as "threatened" species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species collects and disseminates information on the global threated species.

Proportion of threatened species is only reported for the more completely evaluated groups (i.e., >90% of species evaluated). Also, the reported percentage of threatened species for each group is presented as a best estimate within a range of possible values bounded by lower and upper estimates:

Lower estimate = % threatened extant species if all Data Deficient species are not threatened, i.e., (CR + EN + VU) / (total assessed - EX)

Best estimate = % threatened extant species if Data Deficient species are equally threatened as data sufficient species, i.e., (CR + EN + VU) / (total assessed - EX - DD)

Upper estimate = % threatened extant species if all Data Deficient species are threatened, i.e., (CR + EN + VU + DD) / (total assessed - EX)

Additional information on ecology and habitat preferences, threats, and conservation action are also collated and assessed as part of Red List process.


Developmentrelevance:
Population estimates are usually based on national population censuses. Estimates for the years before and after the census are interpolations or extrapolations based on demographic models. Errors and undercounting occur even in high-income countries; in developing countries errors may be substantial because of limits in the transport, communications, and other resources required conducting and analyzing a full census.

Population density is a measure of the intensity of land-use, and can be calculated for a block, city, county, state, country, continent or the entire world. Considering that over half of the Earth's land mass consists of areas inhospitable to human inhabitation, such as deserts and high mountains, and that population tends to cluster around seaports and fresh water sources, a simple number of population density by itself does not give any meaningful measurement of human population density.

Several of the most densely populated territories in the world are city-states, microstates, or dependencies.[6][7] These territories share a relatively small area and a high urbanization level, with an economically specialized city population drawing also on rural resources outside the area, illustrating the difference between high population density and overpopulation.

IndicatorName: Population density (people per sq. km of land area)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Current population estimates for developing countries that lack recent census data and pre- and post-census estimates for countries with census data are provided by the United Nations Population Division and other agencies. The cohort component method - a standard method for estimating and projecting population - requires fertility, mortality, and net migration data, often collected from sample surveys, which can be small or limited in coverage. Population estimates are from demographic modeling and so are susceptible to biases and errors from shortcomings in the model and in the data. Because the five-year age group is the cohort unit and five-year period data are used, interpolations to obtain annual data or single age structure may not reflect actual events or age composition.

The quality and reliability of official demographic data are also affected by public trust in the government, government commitment to full and accurate enumeration, confidentiality and protection against misuse of census data, and census agencies' independence from political influence. Moreover, comparability of population indicators is limited by differences in the concepts, definitions, collection procedures, and estimation methods used by national statistical agencies and other organizations that collect the data.

Longdefinition: Population density is midyear population divided by land area in square kilometers. Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship--except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin. Land area is a country's total area, excluding area under inland water bodies, national claims to continental shelf, and exclusive economic zones. In most cases the definition of inland water bodies includes major rivers and lakes.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization and World Bank population estimates.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Population density is midyear population divided by land area in square kilometers. This ratio can be calculated for any territorial unit for any point in time, depending on the source of the population data. Populationestimates are prepared by World Bank staff from variety of sources. They are based on the de facto definition of population and include all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship, within the physical boundaries of a country and under the jurisdiction of that country's political control. Refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum are considered part of the population of their country of origin. Population numbers are either current census data or historical census data extrapolated through demographic methods. The count also excludes visitors from overseas.

Population density is calculated by dividing midyear population by land area in a country. Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship - except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of their country of origin. Land area is a country's total area, excluding area under inland water bodies, national claims to continental shelf, and exclusive economic zones. In most cases the definition of inland water bodies includes major rivers and lakes.


Developmentrelevance: The level of water stress can show the degree to which water resources are being exploited to meet the country's water demand. It measures a country's pressure on its water resources and therefore the challenge on the sustainability of its water use. It tracks progress in regard to “withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity”, i.e. the environmental component of target 6.4. It also shows to what extent water resources are already used, and signals the importance of effective supply and demand management policies. It indicates the likelihood of increasing competition and conflict between different water uses and users in a situation of increasing water scarcity. Increased water stress, shown by an increase in the value of the indicator, has potentially negative effects on the sustainability of the natural resources and on economic development. On the other hand, low values of water stress indicate that water does not represent a particular challenge for economic development and sustainability.

IndicatorName: Level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources

Limitationsandexceptions:
Water withdrawal as a percentage of water resources is a good indicator of pressure on limited water resources, one of the most important natural resources. However, it only partially addresses the issues related to sustainable water management. Supplementary indicators that capture the multiple dimensions of water management would combine data on water demand management, behavioural changes with regard to water use and the availability of appropriate infrastructure, and measure progress in increasing the efficiency and sustainability of water use, in particular in relation to population and economic growth. They would also recognize the different climatic environments that affect water use in countries, in particular in agriculture, which is the main user of water. Sustainability assessment is also linked to the critical thresholds fixed for this indicator and there is no universal consensus on such threshold.

Trends in water withdrawal show relatively slow patterns of change. Usually, three-five years are a minimum frequency to be able to detect significant changes, as it is unlikely that the indicator would show meaningful variations from one year to the other. Estimation of water withdrawal by sector is the main limitation to the computation of the indicator. Few countries actually publish water use data on a regular basis by sector. Renewable water resources include all surface water and groundwater resources that are available on a yearly basis without consideration of the capacity to harvest and use this resource. Exploitable water resources, which refer to the volume of surface water or groundwater that is available with an occurrence of 90% of the time, are considerably less than renewable water resources, but no universal method exists to assess such exploitable water resources. There is no universally agreed method for the computation of incoming freshwater flows originating outside of a country's borders. Nor is there any standard method to account for return flows, the part of the water withdrawn from its source and which flows back to the river system after use. In countries where return flow represents a substantial part of water withdrawal, the indicator tends to underestimate available water and therefore overestimate the level of water stress.

Other limitations that affect the interpretation of the water stress indicator include: difficulty to obtain accurate, complete and up-to-date data; potentially large variation of sub-national data; lack of account of seasonal variations in water resources; lack of consideration to the distribution among water uses; lack of consideration of water quality and its suitability for use; and the indicator can be higher than 100 per cent when water withdrawal includes secondary freshwater (water withdrawn previously and returned to the system), non-renewable water (fossil groundwater), when annual groundwater withdrawal is higher than annual replenishment (over-abstraction) or when water withdrawal includes part or all of the water set aside for environmental water requirements. Some of these issues can be solved through disaggregation of the index at the level of hydrological units and by distinguishing between different use sectors. However, due to the complexity of water flows, both within a country and between countries, care should be taken not to double-count.

Longdefinition: The level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources is the ratio between total freshwater withdrawn by all major sectors and total renewable freshwater resources, after taking into account environmental water requirements. Main sectors, as defined by ISIC standards, include agriculture; forestry and fishing; manufacturing; electricity industry; and services. This indicator is also known as water withdrawal intensity.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization, AQUASTAT data.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Proportion of total renewable water resources withdrawn is the total volume of groundwater and surface water withdrawn from their sources for human use (in the agricultural, municipal and industrial sectors), expressed as a percentage of the total actual renewable water resources. The terms water resources and water withdrawal are understood as freshwater resources and freshwater withdrawal. Water withdrawal is estimated for the following three main sectors: agriculture, municipalities (including domestic water withdrawal) and industries, at country level and expressed in km3/year. The total actual renewable water resources for a country or region are defined as the sum of internal renewable water resources and the external renewable water resources, also expressed in km3/year. The indicator is computed by dividing total water withdrawal by total actual renewable water resources minus environmental requirements and expressed in percentage points.

Total freshwater withdrawal is the volume of freshwater extracted from its source (rivers, lakes, aquifers) for agriculture, industries and municipalities. It is estimated at the country level for the following three main sectors: agriculture, municipalities (including domestic water withdrawal) and industries. Freshwater withdrawal includes primary freshwater (not withdrawn before), secondary freshwater (previously withdrawn and returned to rivers and groundwater, such as discharged wastewater and agricultural drainage water) and fossil groundwater. It does not include non-conventional water, i.e. direct use of treated wastewater, direct use of agricultural drainage water and desalinated water. Total freshwater withdrawal is in general calculated as being the sum of total water withdrawal by sector minus direct use of wastewater, direct use of agricultural drainage water and use of desalinated water.

Total renewable freshwater resources are expressed as the sum of internal and external renewable water resources. The terms “water resources” and “water withdrawal” are understood here as freshwater resources and freshwater withdrawal. Internal renewable water resources are defined as the long-term average annual flow of rivers and recharge of groundwater for a given country generated from endogenous precipitation. External renewable water resources refer to the flows of water entering the country, taking into consideration the quantity of flows reserved to upstream and downstream countries through agreements or treaties.

Environmental water requirements (Env.) are the quantities of water required to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems. Water quality and also the resulting ecosystem services are excluded from this formulation which is confined to water volumes. This does not imply that quality and the support to societies which are dependent on environmental flows are not important and should not be taken care of. Methods of computation of Env. are extremely variable and range from global estimates to comprehensive assessments for river reaches. Water volumes can be expressed in the same units as the total freshwater withdrawal, and then as percentages of the available water resources.


Developmentrelevance:
While some countries have an abundant supply of fresh water, others do not have as much. UN estimates that many areas of the world are already experiencing stress on water availability. Due to the accelerated pace of population growth and an increase in the amount of water a single person uses, it is expected that this situation will continue to get worse. The ability of developing countries to make more water available for domestic, agricultural, industrial and environmental uses will depend on better management of water resources and more cross-sectorial planning and integration. According to World Water Council, by 2020, water use is expected to increase by 40 percent, and 17 percent more water will be required for food production to meet the needs of the growing population. The three major factors causing increasing water demand over the past century are population growth, industrial development and the expansion of irrigated agriculture.

There is now ample evidence that increased hydrologic variability and change in climate has and will continue to have a profound impact on the water sector through the hydrologic cycle, water availability, water demand, and water allocation at the global, regional, basin, and local levels. Properly managed water resources are a critical component of growth, poverty reduction and equity. The livelihoods of the poorest are critically associated with access to water services. A shortage of water in the future would be detrimental to the human population as it would affect everything from sanitation, to overall health and the production of grain.

Freshwater use by continents is partly based on several socio-economic development factors, including population, physiography, and climatic characteristics. It is estimated that in the coming decades the most intensive growth of water withdrawal is expected to occur in Africa and South America (increasing by 1.5-1.6 times), while the smallest growth will take place in Europe and North America (1.2 times).

IndicatorName: Annual freshwater withdrawals, total (% of internal resources)

Limitationsandexceptions:
A common perception is that most of the available freshwater resources are visible (on the surfaces of lakes, reservoirs and rivers). However, this visible water represents only a tiny fraction of global freshwater resources, as most of it is stored in aquifers, with the largest stocks stored in solid form in the Antarctic and in Greenland's ice cap.

The data on freshwater resources are based on estimates of runoff into rivers and recharge of groundwater. These estimates are based on different sources and refer to different years, so cross-country comparisons should be made with caution. Because the data are collected intermittently, they may hide significant variations in total renewable water resources from year to year. The data also fail to distinguish between seasonal and geographic variations in water availability within countries. Data for small countries and countries in arid and semiarid zones are less reliable than those for larger countries and countries with greater rainfall.

Caution should also be used in comparing data on annual freshwater withdrawals, which are subject to variations in collection and estimation methods. In addition, inflows and outflows are estimated at different times and at different levels of quality and precision, requiring caution in interpreting the data, particularly for water-short countries, notably in the Middle East and North Africa.

The data are based on surveys and estimates provided by governments to the Joint Monitoring Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The coverage rates are based on information from service users on actual household use rather than on information from service providers, which may include nonfunctioning systems.

Longdefinition: Annual freshwater withdrawals refer to total water withdrawals, not counting evaporation losses from storage basins. Withdrawals also include water from desalination plants in countries where they are a significant source. Withdrawals can exceed 100 percent of total renewable resources where extraction from nonrenewable aquifers or desalination plants is considerable or where there is significant water reuse. Withdrawals for agriculture and industry are total withdrawals for irrigation and livestock production and for direct industrial use (including withdrawals for cooling thermoelectric plants). Withdrawals for domestic uses include drinking water, municipal use or supply, and use for public services, commercial establishments, and homes. Data are for the most recent year available for 1987-2002.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: Annual freshwater withdrawals are total water withdrawals, not counting evaporation losses from storage basins. Withdrawals also include water from desalination plants in countries where they are a significant source. Withdrawals can exceed 100 percent of total renewable resources where extraction from nonrenewable aquifers or desalination plants is considerable or where water reuse is significant. Withdrawals for agriculture and industry are total withdrawals for irrigation and livestock production and for direct industrial use (including for cooling thermoelectric plants). Withdrawals for domestic uses include drinking water, municipal use or supply, and use for public services, commercial establishments, and homes.


Developmentrelevance:
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines a protected area as "a clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values."

Terrestrial protected areas are totally or partially protected areas of at least 1,000 hectares that are designated by national authorities as scientific reserves with limited public access, national parks, natural monuments, nature reserves or wildlife sanctuaries, protected landscapes, and areas managed mainly for sustainable use.

Marine protected areas are areas of intertidal or subtidal terrain - and overlying water and associated flora and fauna and historical and cultural features - that have been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or the entire enclosed environment. Sites protected under local or provincial law are excluded.

As threats to biodiversity mount, the international community is increasingly focusing on conserving diversity. Deforestation is a major cause of loss of biodiversity, and habitat conservation is vital for stemming this loss. Conservation efforts have focused on protecting areas of high biodiversity. Increasing the proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected helps defend vulnerable plant and animal species and safeguard biodiversity.

Protected areas remain the fundamental building blocks of virtually all national and international conservation strategies, supported by governments and international institutions. They provide the core of efforts to protect the world's threatened species and are increasingly recognized as essential providers of ecosystem services and biological resources. Some sites are owned and managed by governments, others by private individuals, companies, communities and faith groups.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) address concerns common to all economies. In recognition of the vulnerability of animal and plant species, SDGs include targets 14 and 15 to highlight the importance of marine and terrestorial protected areas. Increasing the proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected helps defend vulnerable plant and animal species and safeguard biodiversity.

Generalcomments: Restricted use: Please contact the Protected Planet for third-party use of these data.

IndicatorName: Terrestrial and marine protected areas (% of total territorial area)

License_Type: Use and distribution of these data are subject to Protected Planet terms and conditions.

Limitationsandexceptions:
The data source for this indicator is the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), the most comprehensive global dataset on marine and terrestrial protected areas available.

The extent to which the land areas, including inland waters, and territorial waters of a country/territory are protected is useful for planning purpose to protect biodiversity. However, it is neither an indication of how well managed the terrestrial and marine protected areas are, nor confirmation that protection measures are effectively enforced. Further, the indicator does not provide information on non-designated or internationally designated protected areas that may also be important for conserving biodiversity. There are known data and knowledge gaps for some countries/regions due to difficulties in reporting national protected area data to the WDPA and/or determining whether a site conforms to the IUCN definition of a protected area.

Gaps and/or time lags in reporting national protected area data to the WDPA can however result in discrepancies, which are resolved in communication with data providers. The World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) compiles data on protected areas, numbers of certain species, and numbers of those species under threat from various sources. Because of differences in definitions, reporting practices, and reporting periods, cross-country comparability is limited.

Due to variations in consistency and methods of collection, data quality is highly variable across countries. Some countries update their information more frequently than others, some have more accurate data on extent of coverage, and many underreport the number or extent of protected areas.

Longdefinition: Terrestrial protected areas are totally or partially protected areas of at least 1,000 hectares that are designated by national authorities as scientific reserves with limited public access, national parks, natural monuments, nature reserves or wildlife sanctuaries, protected landscapes, and areas managed mainly for sustainable use. Marine protected areas are areas of intertidal or subtidal terrain--and overlying water and associated flora and fauna and historical and cultural features--that have been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment. Sites protected under local or provincial law are excluded.

Source: World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) where the compilation and management is carried out by United Nations Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in collaboration with governments, non-governmental organizations, academia and industry. The data is available online through the Protected Planet website (https://www.protectedplanet.net/).

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
This indicator is calculated using all the nationally designated protected areas recorded in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) whose location and extent is known. The WDPA database is stored within a Geographic Information System (GIS) that stores information about protected areas such as their name, type and date of designation, documented area, geographic location (point) and/or boundary (polygon).

A GIS analysis is used to calculate terrestrial and marine protection. For this a global protected area layer is created by combining the polygons and points recorded in the WDPA. Circular buffers are created around points based on the known extent of protected areas for which no polygon is available. Annual protected area layers are created by dissolving the global protected area layer by the known year of establishment of protected areas recorded in the WDPA. The annual protected area layers are overlaid with country/territory boundaries, coastlines and buffered coastlines (delineating the territorial waters) to obtain the absolute coverage (in square kilometers) of protected areas by country/territory per year from 1990 to present. The total area of a country's/territory's terrestrial protected areas and marine protected areas in territorial waters is divided by the total area of its land areas (including inland waters) and territorial waters to obtain the relative coverage (percentage) of protected areas.


Developmentrelevance: Expenditure on research and development (R&D) is a key indicator of government and private sector efforts to obtain competitive advantage in science and technology.

IndicatorName: Research and development expenditure (% of GDP)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Estimates of the resources allocated to R&D are affected by national characteristics such as the periodicity and coverage of national R&D surveys across institutional sectors and industries; and the use of different sampling and estimation methods. R&D typically involves a few large performers, hence R&D surveys use various techniques to maintain up-to-date registers of known performers, while attempting to identify new or occasional performers.

R&D totals from SNA accounts may differ from these estimates, due in part to the different treatments of software R&D in the totals.

Longdefinition: Gross domestic expenditures on research and development (R&D), expressed as a percent of GDP. They include both capital and current expenditures in the four main sectors: Business enterprise, Government, Higher education and Private non-profit. R&D covers basic research, applied research, and experimental development.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). UIS.Stat Bulk Data Download Service. Accessed November 27, 2023. https://apiportal.uis.unesco.org/bdds.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
The gross domestic expenditure on R&D indicator consists of the total expenditure (current and capital) on R&D by all resident companies, research institutes, university and government laboratories, etc. It excludes R&D expenditures financed by domestic firms but performed abroad.

The OECD's Frascati Manual defines research and experimental development as "creative work undertaken on a systemic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications." R&D covers basic research, applied research, and experimental development.

(1) Basic research - Basic research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view

(2) Applied research - Applied research is also original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge; it is, however, directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective.

(3) Experimental development - Experimental development is systematic work, drawing on existing knowledge gained from research and/or practical experience, which is directed to producing new materials, products or devices, to installing new processes, systems and services, or to improving substantially those already produced or installed.

The fields of science and technology used to classify R&D according to the Revised Fields of Science and Technology Classification are:
1. Natural sciences;
2. Engineering and technology;
3. Medical and health sciences;
4. Agricultural sciences;
5. Social sciences;
6. Humanities and the arts.

The data are obtained through statistical surveys which are regularly conducted at national level covering R&D performing entities in the private and public sectors.

Topic: Governance: Innovation


IndicatorName: Government Effectiveness: Estimate

Longdefinition: Government Effectiveness captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.

Source: Detailed documentation of the WGI, interactive tools for exploring the data, and full access to the underlying source data available at www.govindicators.org.The WGI are produced by Daniel Kaufmann (Natural Resource Governance Institute and Brookings Institution) and Aart Kraay (World Bank Development Research Group).  Please cite Kaufmann, Daniel, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi (2010).  "The Worldwide Governance Indicators:  Methodology and Analytical Issues".  World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5430 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1682130).  The WGI do not reflect the official views of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, the Brookings Institution, the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.

Topic: Governance: Government Effectiveness


Aggregationmethod: Unweighted average

Developmentrelevance:
Access to finance can expand opportunities for all with higher levels of access and use of banking services associated with lower financing obstacles for people and businesses. A stable financial system that promotes efficient savings and investment is also crucial for a thriving democracy and market economy.

There are several aspects of access to financial services: availability, cost, and quality of services. The development and growth of credit markets depend on access to timely, reliable, and accurate data on borrowers' credit experiences. Access to credit can be improved by making it easy to create and enforce collateral agreements and by increasing information about potential borrowers' creditworthiness. Lenders look at a borrower's credit history and collateral. Where credit registries and effective collateral laws are absent - as in many developing countries - banks make fewer loans. Indicators that cover getting credit include the strength of legal rights index and the depth of credit information index.

The economic health of a country is measured not only in macroeconomic terms but also by other factors that shape daily economic activity such as laws, regulations, and institutional arrangements. The data measure business regulation, gauge regulatory outcomes, and measure the extent of legal protection of property, the flexibility of employment regulation, and the tax burden on businesses.

The fundamental premise of this data is that economic activity requires good rules and regulations that are efficient, accessible to all who need to use them, and simple to implement. Thus sometimes there is more emphasis on more regulation, such as stricter disclosure requirements in related-party transactions, and other times emphasis is on for simplified regulations, such as a one-stop shop for completing business startup formalities.

Entrepreneurs may not be aware of all required procedures or may avoid legally required procedures altogether. But where regulation is particularly onerous, levels of informality are higher, which comes at a cost: firms in the informal sector usually grow more slowly, have less access to credit, and employ fewer workers - and those workers remain outside the protections of labor law. The indicator can help policymakers understand the business environment in a country and - along with information from other sources such as the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys - provide insights into potential areas of reform.

Generalcomments: Data are presented for the survey year instead of publication year.

IndicatorName: Strength of legal rights index (0=weak to 12=strong)

Limitationsandexceptions: The Doing Business methodology has limitations that should be considered when interpreting the data. First, the data collected refer to businesses in the economy's largest city and may not represent regulations in other locations of the economy. To address this limitation, subnational indicators are being collected for selected economies. These subnational studies point to significant differences in the speed of reform and the ease of doing business across cities in the same economy. Second, the data often focus on a specific business form - generally a limited liability company of a specified size - and may not represent regulation for other types of businesses such as sole proprietorships. Third, transactions described in a standardized business case refer to a specific set of issues and may not represent the full set of issues a business encounters. Fourth, the time measures involve an element of judgment by the expert respondents. When sources indicate different estimates, the Doing Business time indicators represent the median values of several responses given under the assumptions of the standardized case. Fifth, the methodology assumes that a business has full information on what is required and does not waste time when completing procedures.

Longdefinition: Strength of legal rights index measures the degree to which collateral and bankruptcy laws protect the rights of borrowers and lenders and thus facilitate lending. The index ranges from 0 to 12, with higher scores indicating that these laws are better designed to expand access to credit.

Source: World Bank, Doing Business project (http://www.doingbusiness.org/). NOTE: Doing Business has been discontinued as of 9/16/2021. For more information: https://bit.ly/3CLCbme

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Data are collected by the World Bank with a standardized survey that uses a simple business case to ensure comparability across economies and over time - with assumptions about the legal form of the business, its size, its location, and nature of its operation. Surveys are administered through more than 9,000 local experts, including lawyers, business consultants, accountants, freight forwarders, government officials, and other professionals who routinely administer or advise on legal and regulatory requirements.

The Doing Business project of the World Bank encompasses two types of data: data from readings of laws and regulations and data on time and motion indicators that measure efficiency in achieving a regulatory goal. Within the time and motion indicators cost estimates are recorded from official fee schedules where applicable. The data from surveys are subjected to numerous tests for robustness, which lead to revision or expansion of the information collected. Data starting in 2013 reflect the DB15-17 methodology change. For more information on methodology, see http://www.doingbusiness.org/Methodology/getting-credit#legalRights.

Topic: Governance: Human Rights


Aggregationmethod: Gap-filled total

Developmentrelevance:
A scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Most journals are highly specialized, although some of the oldest journals such as Nature publish articles and scientific papers across a wide range of scientific fields. Scientific journals contain articles that have been peer reviewed. When a scientific journal describes experiments or calculations, they must supply enough details that an independent researcher could repeat the experiment or calculation to verify the results. Each such journal article becomes part of the permanent scientific record.

Some journals, such as Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), and Physical Review Letters, have a reputation of publishing articles that mark a fundamental breakthrough in their respective fields.

Limitationsandexceptions:
Scientific and technical article counts are from journals classified by the Institute for Scientific Information's Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Counts are based on fractional assignments; articles with authors from different countries are allocated proportionately to each country. The SCI and SSCI databases cover the core set of scientific journals but may exclude some of local importance and may reflect some bias toward English-language journals.
Articles are classified by year of publication and assigned to region/country/economy on basis of institutional address(es) listed on the article. Articles are counted on a fractional-count basis that is, for articles with collaborating institutions from multiple countries/economies, each country/economy receives fractional credit on basis of proportion of its participating institutions. Details may not add to total because of rounding.

Longdefinition: Scientific and technical journal articles refer to the number of scientific and engineering articles published in the following fields: physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, clinical medicine, biomedical research, engineering and technology, and earth and space sciences.

Source: National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Indicators.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: The number of scientific and engineering articles published in the following fields: physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, clinical medicine, biomedical research, engineering and technology, and earth and space sciences. The NSF considers article counts from a set of journals covered by Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).


Developmentrelevance:
The Patent Cooperation Treaty (www.wipo.int/pct) provides a two phase system for filing patent. International applications under the treaty provide for a national patent grant only - there is no international patent. The national filing represents the applicant's seeking of patent protection for a given territory, whereas international filings, while representing a legal right, do not accurately reflect where patent protection is sought. Resident filings are those from residents of the country concerned. Nonresident filings are from applicants abroad. For regional offices applications from residents of any member state of the regional patent convention are considered nonresident filings. Some offices (notably the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) use the residence of the inventor rather than the applicant to classify filings.

Patent data are a great resource for the study of technical change in a country or region. Patent data provide a uniquely detailed source of information on inventive activity and the multiple dimensions of the inventive process (e.g. geographical location, technical and institutional origin, individuals and networks). Furthermore, patent data form a consistent basis for comparisons across time and across countries.

Patent data can be used in the analysis of a wide array of topics related to technical change and patenting activity including industry-science linkages, patenting strategies by companies, internationalization of research, and indicators on the value of patents. Patent-based statistics reflect the inventive performance of countries, regions and firms, as well as other aspects of the dynamics of the innovation process such as co-operation in innovation or technology paths.

IndicatorName: Patent applications, residents

Limitationsandexceptions: A patent is an exclusive right granted for a specified period (generally 20 years) for a new way of doing something or a new technical solution to a problem - an invention. The invention must be of practical use and display a characteristic unknown in the existing body of knowledge in its field. Most countries have systems to protect patentable inventions.

Longdefinition: Patent applications are worldwide patent applications filed through the Patent Cooperation Treaty procedure or with a national patent office for exclusive rights for an invention--a product or process that provides a new way of doing something or offers a new technical solution to a problem. A patent provides protection for the invention to the owner of the patent for a limited period, generally 20 years.

Shortdefinition: Patent applications are worldwide patent applications filed through the Patent Cooperation Treaty procedure or with a national patent office.

Source: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), WIPO Patent Report: Statistics on Worldwide Patent Activity. The International Bureau of WIPO assumes no responsibility with respect to the transformation of these data.

Statisticalconceptandmethodology:
Resident patent applications are those for which the first-named applicant or assignee is a resident of the State or region concerned. In the case of regional offices such as the European Patent Office, a resident is an applicant from any of the member States of the regional patent convention.

Patent data cover applications and grants classified by field of technology. International applications series distinguish four subcategories: a) patents taken out by residents of a country in that country; b) patents taken out in a country by non-residents of that country; c) total patents registered in the country or naming it; d) patents taken out outside a country by its residents. Data on patents granted only distinguish between patents awarded to residents and to non-residents. A patent provides protection for the invention to the owner of the patent for a limited period, generally 20 years.

Patent applications are worldwide patent applications filed through the Patent Cooperation Treaty procedure or with a national patent office for exclusive rights for an invention - a product or process that provides a new way of doing something or offers a new technical solution to a problem.


Developmentrelevance:
The digital and information revolution has changed the way the world learns, communicates, does business, and treats illnesses. New information and communications technologies (ICT) offer vast opportunities for progress in all walks of life in all countries - opportunities for economic growth, improved health, better service delivery, learning through distance education, and social and cultural advances.

Today's smartphones and tablets have computer power equivalent to that of yesterday's computers and provide a similar range of functions. Device convergence is thus rendering the conventional definition obsolete.

Comparable statistics on access, use, quality, and affordability of ICT are needed to formulate growth-enabling policies for the sector and to monitor and evaluate the sector's impact on development. Although basic access data are available for many countries, in most developing countries little is known about who uses ICT; what they are used for (school, work, business, research, government); and how they affect people and businesses. The global Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development is helping to set standards, harmonize information and communications technology statistics, and build statistical capacity in developing countries. However, despite significant improvements in the developing world, the gap between the ICT haves and have-nots remains.

Generalcomments: Please cite the International Telecommunication Union for third-party use of these data.

IndicatorName: Individuals using the Internet (% of population)

Limitationsandexceptions:
Operators have traditionally been the main source of telecommunications data, so information on subscriptions has been widely available for most countries. This gives a general idea of access, but a more precise measure is the penetration rate - the share of households with access to telecommunications. During the past few years more information on information and communication technology use has become available from household and business surveys. Also important are data on actual use of telecommunications services. Ideally, statistics on telecommunications (and other information and communications technologies) should be compiled for all three measures: subscriptions, access, and use. The quality of data varies among reporting countries as a result of differences in regulations covering data provision and availability.

Discrepancies may also arise in cases where the end of a fiscal year differs from that used by ITU, which is the end of December of every year. A number of countries have fiscal years that end in March or June of every year.

Longdefinition: Internet users are individuals who have used the Internet (from any location) in the last 3 months. The Internet can be used via a computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, games machine, digital TV etc.

Source: International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database

Statisticalconceptandmethodology: The Internet is a world-wide public computer network. It provides access to a number of communication services including the World Wide Web and carries email, news, entertainment and data files, irrespective of the device used (not assumed to be only via a computer - it may also be by mobile phone, PDA, games machine, digital TV etc.). Access can be via a fixed or mobile network. For additional/latest information on sources and country notes, please also refer to: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx

Topic: Governance: Economic Environment