The Ministry of Environment and Tourism is currently in the process of defining the National Core a set of Environmental Indicators (NCEI) that will be used in the future to monitor the environment. This will form a significant source of information for decisions in environmental management and will feed into the President's Vision 2030 process. A great number of indicators (184) have been suggested for the State of the Environment Report (SoER) process in Namibia between 1998 and 2001. Seven themes were chosen for a thorough study of the state of the environment in Namibia:

• Freshwater resources

  • Executive Summary

  • Indicators

• Social and Economic environment

  • Executive Summary

  • Indicators 

• Agriculture and land resources

  • Executive Summary

  • Indicators: Part 1 and Part 2

• Biodiversity, parks and tourism

  • Executive Summary

  • Indicators

• Mining, industry, energy and transport

  • Executive Summary

  •  Indicators: Introduction

    • Manufacturing Indicators

    • Mining Indicators

    • Energy Indicators

    • Transport Indicators

• Waste management and pollution control

  • Executive Summary

  • Indicators

• Marine, fisheries and coastal resources (being compiled)

It is impossible to monitor quite so many indicators, especially considering the national level monitoring programmes are extremely resource-intensive. It is therefore, that the Environmental Monitoring and Indicators Network (EMIN) Workshop was held on June11-12, 2001, to identified and streamlined the most effective and efficient indicators for incorporation into Namibia's NCEI. A total of 142 indicators were used to describe the 10 most crucial environmental issues (link), out of the collection of 184.

Note: The top five scores are listed. Were more than one on rank 5 was listed, all indicators fetching the same score are included. Data availability, sources and means of monitoring of key data from these indicators will be provided as soon as the information is available.

Environmental Issue

      Indicator

1. Ecosystem degradation/ desertification

• Monitoring of changes in water quality

• Salinisation of irrigated land

• Area under forest management (i.e. area of forest and other wooded lands being managed according to a plan for the production of wood-based products)

• Salinisation of dams

• Mean annual rainfall

2. Availability of water

• Population pressure

• Quality of water in the Goreangab Dam

• Cooperation with neighbouring riparian states under transnational initiatives

• Draft White Paper on Water and the new Water Bill

• Unsustainable irrigation development

3. Depletion of natural resources

• Monthly abstraction in strategic aquifers

• Total woody biomass of national forest

• Water consumption by resource type (by sector)

• Total biomass consumption

• Total area of national forest, plantations and other wooded lands

4. Change in biodiversity

• Change in number and/or distribution of keystone and indicator species

• Algae index

• Change in land use % of protected forest

• Benthic macro-invertebrates

• Change in proportion of fish catches by species per season

5. Water quality

• Pollution of groundwater

• Ambient change of water quality

• Goreangab Dam water quality

• Amount of chlorine used per cubic metre of water supply

• Growth rate of urban population

• Algae index

• Population pressures

• Maintenance of hydrological function of wetlands

6. Toxic chemicals

• National fuel consumption

• Use of pesticides

• Chemical fertiliser reports

• Coastal oil pollution

• International conventions and/or policies implemented

7. Waste generation

• Number of tyres to the Kupferberg dump site per capita per annum

• Number of tyres imported per annum

• Medical waste

• Number of complaints received by authorities

• Number of jobs created in private sector per capita

• Tonnage of cans exported per year

• Number of wheel-bins used per capita

• Number of private contractors in waste management

• Number of entrepreneurs involved in waste collection

• Amount of packaging imported per capita

• Collection infrastructure in use per local authority

• Transport infrastructure in use per capita per local authority

• Used batteries exported as proportion of imports

• Number of local authorities with composting facilities

8. The greenhouse effect (global warming)

• Total area of national forest, plantations and other wooded lands

• Rainfall index

• Climate change

• Proportion of Caprivi and Kavango burned

• Number of rainfall gauging stations

9. Ozone-layer depletion

• Ozone-layer depletion

• Enforcement and control of illegal trade in CFCs

• Recycled materials

• Dependence on shared resources

• International conventions and/or policies implemented

10. Acidification

• Mean annual rainfall

• Number of rainfall gauging stations

• Annual run-off

• Rain pH

• National energy sources and consumption

For any additional information please contact Ms. Ndaenda Noongo:

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