Back Ground

The NECS serves as an adviser to the RGOB on environment issues and its overall mandate is to ensure that environmental conservation is integrated into the economic development process. The NECS is responsible for the overall co-ordination in the environment sector. NECS is the key institution in the implementation of the EA Act, the development of the National Environmental Protection Act and the Water Act. NECS prepare State of the Environment Reports. NECS is the national focal point for Multilateral Environmental Agreements.

Objectives

The development objective of the Environmental Information Management System (EIMS) is to enable a Strategic Environmental Management in Bhutan, where environmental information is used to identify emerging environmental problems, to set priorities and targets for environmental policies, and to evaluate the effects of the policy actions that have been taken.

Methodological Framework

Environment Information Management System (EIMS) is developed on the framework Applied for our Bhutan Environment Outlook 2008 which is based on Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Environment reporting framework “pressure-state-response” (PSR) model.

This simple model works on the premise that human activities exert ‘pressure’ on the environment. This causes the ‘state’ (or condition) of the environment to change. Society will then ‘respond’ to this change with policies that influence human activities and which then directly affect the state of the environment, thus triggering a cyclic process . The model is explained graphically below.

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Indicator System:

Pressure indicators describe developments in release of substances (emissions), physical and biological agents, the use of resources and the use of land. The pressures exerted by Society are transported and transformed in a variety of natural processes to manifest themselves in changes in environmental conditions.

 

State indicators give a description of the quantity and quality of physical phenomena (such as temperature or river flow), biological phenomena (such as wildlife stocks) and chemical phenomena (such as atmospheric pollutants) in a certain area. State indicators may, for instance, describe the forest and wildlife resources present, the concentration of pollutants in aquatic environments, or the level of air pollution in cities.

Response indicators refer to responses by groups (and individuals) in society, as well as government attempts to prevent, compensate, ameliorate or adapt to changes in the state of the environment. Some societal responses may be regarded as negative driving forces, since they aim at redirecting prevailing trends in consumption and production patterns. Other responses aim at raising the efficiency of products and processes, through stimulating the development and penetration of clean technologies. Examples of response indicators are the relative amount of cars with catalytic converters and recycling rates of domestic waste. Environmental expenditures are often used as an ”overall” response indicator.

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