Abstract
In recent years, there has been a boom in environmental assessment reports utilizing environmental indicators. Most of these publications are based on the casual chain frameworks (e.g., Pressure–State–Response (PSR), Driving force–State–Response (DSR), and Driving force–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR)). These frameworks have made an important contribution by emphasising the importance of causality. However, the reliance on simple uni-directional chains is at the same time not very conducive to a good understanding of the complexity of the processes behind environmental indicators. This limits the usefulness of these frameworks for environmental (impact) assessments. In this paper we propose an enhanced DPSIR (eDPSIR) framework for environmental indicators that takes inter-relations of indicators into account by relying on the use of causal networks rather than causal chains. It will be shown how the concept of causal networks can increase insight into the inter-relation of environmental issues and associated indicators, can facilitate the identification of key indicators for particular kinds of questions, and can provide a useful first step to the establishment of dose–response functions. Working with causal networks can contribute to more appropriate environmental policies and better management decisions.
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Abbreviations
- DPSIR:
-
Driving force–Pressure–State–Impact–Response
- DSR:
-
Driving force–State–Response
- eDPSIR:
-
enhanced DPSIR framework
- EEA:
-
European Environment Agency
- OECD:
-
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- PSR:
-
Pressure–State–Response
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Acknowledgements
The research for this paper was carried out as part of the “Development of ecological indicators for sustainable food production” project of the PROFETAS (Protein Foods, Environment, Technology And Society) research program funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The authors would like to thank Harry Aiking and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on early versions of this paper.
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Niemeijer, D., de Groot, R.S. Framing environmental indicators: moving from causal chains to causal networks. Environ Dev Sustain 10, 89–106 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-006-9040-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-006-9040-9