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Introduction to the
Cities State of the Environment
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"Cities Environmental Report on the Internet (CEROI) is an international project conducted within the framework of the Local Agenda 21.In June 1992, the United Nations’ Earth Summit established Agenda 21 - the global plan of action to ensure environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development. Recognising the key role that Local Authorities will have in implementing Agenda 21, this plan includes a special mandate to local governments to work together with local stakeholders in preparing long-term strategic plans to achieve sustainable development i.e. ‘local Agenda 21s" .

The CEROI project contributes to the Local Agenda 21 process by facilitating access to environmental information and promoting sound decision making, as well as contributing to general awareness raising around sustainable development issues. The project is supported financially by UNEP, The Norwegian Ministry of Environment and the Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund. Technical support is gained through a contract with GRID-Arendal (Global Resource Information Database in Arendal) who in tern sub-contacted a Norwegian software company: Ugland Publikit.

South Africa is in the fortunate position that four cities were selected to take part in the CEROI initiative. The Cape Metropolitan Council, Durban Metropolitan Council, Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council and Greater Pretoria Council were all selected on the basis of their existing Local Agenda 21 initiatives and past experience with State of the Environment reporting.

The GJSoE on the Internet Report is designed to enhance decision making for environmental protection and sustainability, as a baseline for future management decisions and as a benchmark against international trends. It is also designed to improve environmental education and training amongst decision-makers and the general public. Potential users of the GJSoE on the Internet Report include National, Provincial and Local level government, environmental advisory groups, environmental management practitioners, scientists, and interested members of the public. The GJSoE on the Internet Report for South Africa would contain information on

  • A Metropolitan Perspective on the current State of the Environment
  • Environmental pressures and influences
  • Status and trends in environmental quality
  • Responses from the local government to the pressures on the environment
  • Impacts of these pressures on the environment in a holistic manner

This information will be presented using indicators for monitoring environmental quality discussed in the table of content.

The GJSoE on the Internet Report is obviously of strategic importance, and must contain relevant, scientifically accurate information on all aspects of the environment. This information must be presented in such a way that can be readily understood by all user groups, and that can be easily revised, as updated information becomes available.

The Land Development Objective Process provides the Greater Johannesburg Council with the opportunity to prioritise selected issues for environmental management. These are listed in the Table of Contents. The project now requires the assistance in analysis, compilation and presenting the information Geographically for each issue.

All copyright of the final GJSoE on the Internet Report and components thereof are vested with the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council.

Scope and Philosophy
Available information should be integrated and interactive (in terms of use and maintenance), in use for decision making. This will change the attitude, use, value and management of information.

This project will make information available to the Internet user in an integrated and interactive (user and the administrator) manner for decision making by the reader. The web page will be done in a visual, easy to understand, well-structured and internationally comparable report and should be:

  • Available day and night
  • Not expensive to update and maintain
  • In overlay form to avoid duplication or overload
  • Easily found and cannot be lost
  • Low in printing cost

For the Greater Johannesburg SOE on the Internet it is considered necessary to have two different sets of indicators to evaluate performance of both environmental and information standards. When analysed together, these indicators would determine project tolerance towards all users. This brings a new dimension to the discussion and means that there should be information technology statistics which determine how many times the site is accessed, users reached, how many levels is accessed, time spent/stayed on which pages and the date of access. These indicators are both quantitative and qualitative in nature and will inform the web administrator of the success or failure on the ‘internet’ component. On the other side of the model (SOE), one would determine environmental sustainability indicators to measure and evaluate the six priorities and their related actions. These indicators will also be quantitative and qualitative in nature. Each issue should reflect the local and internationally selected indicators, recognizing the environmental quality and sustainability and reporting on the driving-forces, pressures, states, impacts and responses - DPSIR.

DPSIR MODEL

The Driving force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) model reports on indicators of the selected issues. The DPSIR categories must follow through logically, making explicit the linkages between causes and effects. The purpose of using DPSIR categories is to make the information interpretive, not merely descriptive, and linkages between these categories must be explained. In addition each chapter must contain a section which lists linkages to related issues in other chapters, and cross-references with other driving forces, sources, impacts and responses. This is required to assist in compiling the chapters into an integrated report, which will provide information for practical decision making.

Each chapter should contain and describe each issue clearly and concisely, in terms of the DPSIR categories, as follows:

the severity of the driving forces, according to the colour-coded classes below. The selection of one of these classes must be substantiated, preferably in terms of the selected indicator of environmental quality or stability, if used. These levels of severity may be reported on spatially (i.e. using maps coloured accordingly), or in tabular form (i.e. listing the colour selected for each driving force), depending on the nature of the data used. For example:

  1. Blue (Ideal)

2. Green (Good)

3. Yellow (Acceptable)

The driving forces are exerting pressures, but the systems or resources are not showing detrimental effects at this point in time.

  1. Orange (Not Acceptable)

The driving forces are resulting in pressures that are too high for the system or resource to tolerate.

5. Red (Bad)

The driving forces must be addressed immediately to reduce the pressures on the system or resource.

  • Driving forces

These are the human influences and activities which, when combined with environmental conditions, underpin environmental change (positively or negatively). For example, the driving forces behind climatic and atmospheric change include increased burning of fossil fuels for transport, and industrial and domestic energy production.

This category should include:

  • past driving forces, which still exert influence on the current state
  • present driving forces
  • predicted future trend in driving forces, in the short term (1-2 years), medium term (2-10 years), and long term (10+ years) . The trend in driving forces must be reported in terms of its direction (i.e. will the force increase or decrease) and by how much (e.g. will it be a linear increase/ decrease, exponential increase/ decrease?)
  • the geographic location, and extent of influence of driving forces
  • the nature of the influence of the driving force (e.g. is it a linear relationship between force and impact?)
  • Pressures

These are the pressures on the functionality and quality of the system or resource, resulting from the driving forces mentioned above. For example, in the chapter on Pollution, increased emissions of SO2, NOx, CO2, and CH4 constitute pressures on the natural system.

This category should explain:

  • synergistic or cumulative pressures resulting from diverse driving forces, where applicable
  • the spatial scale of the pressure (i.e. which provinces, regions, magisterial districts, or urban centres are affected?)
  • the expected future trend in pressures, in the short, medium and long term, in terms of direction, and magnitude
  • State

This refers to the current status of the system or resource, in terms of quality of the environment, and quantity and quality of natural resources. In the chapter on Climatic & Atmospheric Change, for example, current gaseous and particulate concentrations in the atmosphere may be used to describe the state, together with current climatic variables such as minimum, mean, and maximum temperatures, mean annual precipitation and precipitation distribution.

This category should include:

  • a description of the current state
  • recent trends in resource or system health, for as long as data are available
  • Impacts

Impacts are environmental responses to pressures on the current state. Impacts of climatic and atmospheric change, for example, include human health impacts, changes in agricultural productivity and quality of yield, and higher incidence of corrosion of infrastructure.

Impacts should be reported in terms of:

  • changes in quantity and/or quality of the resource or system
  • changes in functionality of systems
  • knock-on effects on other systems or resources (including social and economic systems)
  • synergistic or cumulative environmental impacts
  • the time frame of the impacts (i.e. short, medium & long term)
  • the time required to repair any environmental damage, reverse negative trends, or improve environmental quality should be reported
  • the spatial extent of the impacts
  • Responses

These are society’s responses to environmental changes and concerns. Responses include actions (a) to mitigate, adapt to, or protect human induced negative impacts on the environment, (b) to halt or reverse environmental damage already inflicted, and (c) to preserve and conserve natural resources. Responses to climatic and atmospheric change include ratification of the FCCC, drafting of a white paper on climate change, formation of the National Committee on Climate Change, etc.

This category should include:

  • international agreements signed by South Africa
  • national laws
  • management strategies required by law (such as EIAs, EMPRs)
  • recommendations for sustainable policies and strategies
  • levels of compliance and enforcement
  • the effectiveness of current management strategies and policies

Reference should be made to national and international standards, laws, treaties, and agreements wherever applicable, particularly when reporting on the current state and recent trends in environmental quality, and human responses to environmental change.