E nvironmental I ndices

Le résumé fourni par la source

Abstract An environmental index is the combination of multiple sources of information (i.e., indicators of ecological responses) about an environmental system (e.g., a stream) from potentially varying attributes of that system (e.g., instream processes, ecological processes, species richness, riparian vegetation, etc.). Environmental indices are typically developed to provide an overall snapshot of some feature of the environmental system but they are also used to compare similar environmental systems. The construction of an environmental index requires careful consideration of several important aspects of the individual environmental indicators that contribute to it, namely, defining a theoretical framework for supporting indicator selection; data preparation; standardization of the potentially disparate indicators so that they can easily be combined into an index; weighting and aggregation of the individual indicators; and robustness and sensitivity of the decisions made in constructing an environmental index. By considering all five steps, there is a better chance of producing a transparent, objective, and defensible summary of the attribute of the environmental system.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.