Resource Corner SEEA News and Notes: Issue 19

In this issue you will find resources on land accounts in Brazil, FAO’s Land Cover Legend Registry, UNEP-WCMC's urban ecosystem accounting handbook, India's latest environmental accounts, ecosystem condition methodology in the EU and much more. 


Brazil publishes SEEA land accounts 2000-2020 

On October 7, 2022, IBGE published physical land accounts [Contas Econômicas Ambientais da Terra: Contabilidade Física] to account for the changes in the land stocks in the country from 2000 to 2020. The reduction in areas of natural vegetation is among the major results.

IBGE also updated the data of the "Ecosystem Accounts: the use of land in Brazilian biomes” for the 2018-2020 period.

Read more about the results in IBGE’s press release here.

To access the complete results click here.

Link to the direct publication for land accounts iin Portuguese here: https://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/visualizacao/livros/liv101965_folder.pdf


India releases the 5th issue of the publication EnviStats India -2022 Volume II – Environmental Accounts following the SEEA framework

This publication, issued by NSO India and produced with the support of the Inter-Ministerial Group, highlights some of the important aspects of the environment which can provide important information on the environment-economy nexus to policymakers. The publication highlights India's efforts to developing environmental accounts with increased scope and coverage. 

This year, the report includes chapters covering some of the very important domains of the environment through energy, solid waste, wetland, fish provisioning services and forest accounts. The publication also includes a chapter on biodiversity thematic accounts. Amongst these, energy, solid waste and fish provisioning service accounts have been produced for the first time.

The publication is available at https://www.mospi.gov.in/web/mospi/reports-publications/-/reports/view/templateFive/30303?q=RPCAT 


Nepal published solid waste account for urban municipalities of Nepal 2022

In July 2022, the Central Bureau of Statistics of Nepal published solid waste accounts for municipalities of Nepal.

Solid waste management has long been a major environmental challenge in Nepal. Given the increasing complexity of solid waste management, reducing waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling, reuse, and management of solid waste has become a national priority for Nepal. 

This report is available at:

https://cbs.gov.np/wp-content/upLoads/2022/09/SOLID-WASTE-ACCOUNT-FOR-URBAN-MUNICIPALITIES-OF-NEPAL2022.pdf


Habitat extent and condition in the UK: 2022

A recently released statistical bulletin brings together a range of experimental statistics on extent and condition in the UK for the first time, using the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting framework. The release focuses on eight natural UK habitats, including woodland, enclosed farmland, semi-natural grasslands and coastal margins.

More information is available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/habitatextentandconditionnaturalcapitaluk/2022


UNEP-WCMC publishes two handbooks on urban ecosystem accounting as part of the Sino-German Environmental Partnership

Accounting for urban areas is one of several thematic accounts introduced in the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA). Implementing the SEEA EA at the municipal scale can support urban planning by providing regular, consistent and integrated information on urban ecosystems, the services they supply and the benefits they provide to people in cities and the economy. As part of the Sino-German Biodiversity Component under the Sino-German Environmental Partnership Phase II, UNEP-WCMC & GIZ have produced a set of handbooks on urban ecosystem accounting and how it can support better integration of nature  in cities. State of the art applications of urban ecosystem accounting in China and elsewhere in the world are included.

The handbooks “Urban ecosystem accounting: Concepts and implementation” and “Urban ecosystem accounting: Applications” can be accessed at: https://resources.unep-wcmc.org/products/WCMC_PR023

Read the story at: https://unep-wcmc.org/en/news/balancing-the-books-to-advance-nature-in-urban-development


 

EU-wide methodology to map and assess ecosystem condition- A JRC Science Policy Report

The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 calls for developing an EU-wide methodology based on the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting to map, assess and achieve good condition of ecosystems, so they can deliver benefits to society through the provision of ecosystem services. The EU-wide methodology presented in this report addresses this methodological gap.

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC130782


West African Land Cover Reference System

This publication aims to provide a harmonized land cover reference system in the West Africa region so that specialists and land cover communities can create their own legends and classes while allowing for future integration. This land cover reference system is based on Land Cover Meta Language (LCML), International Organization for Standardization (ISO) based standards. 

This publication is the result of collaboration between Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), the Agrometeorology, Hydrology and Meteorology Regional Centre (AGRHYMET) and SERVIR West Africa.

The publication is available at: https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/CC0730EN


 

An international library for land cover legends: The Land Cover Legend Registry

This article highlights the importance of land cover in achieving several Sustainable Development Goals and to introduce the first international platform for land cover legend, named Land Cover Legend Registry (LCLR). This registry is a contribution to the international land cover community and the UN in effort to promote and support data harmonization processes and interoperability from local to global level, and vice versa. Users can not only use the registry for preparing consistent datasets, but also contribute to it by providing the latest data to ensure the long-term availability of both updated and existing datasets around the world. 

Read the full article here.

Register implementation for land cover legends

This report presents an overview of the structure of a set of registers and an associated registry for the description of the Land Cover Legend (LCL) used by FAO and associated other international organizations. The legends and their classes semantic content and schemas are described with an object-oriented procedure using the Land Cover Meta Language (LCML) as defined in the joint FAO / ISO TC211 standard (ISO 19144-2).

This report was published by FAO, the University of Southampton and Istituto di Sistemi e Tecnologie Industriali Intelligenti per il Manifatturiero Avanzato, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.

The report can be found at https://www.fao.org/3/cb5130en/cb5130en.pdf

Link to ISO TC211 AG 13: https://committee.iso.org/sites/tc211/home/about/advisory-groups.html

Link to FAO NSL Geospatial Unit: https://www.fao.org/geospatial/en/