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Module
5

Q: Do the questions proposed on Figure 1 reflect your understanding of what should be

covered by IEA? If they do not, how would you rephrase them?
Abu Dhabi, UAE
A:

Q: In your opinion, given your experiences to date, is it more advantageous to treat state-
and-trends separate from policy analysis or integrated? Why?

A:

2 Spatial, temporal and thematic context

Environmental assessment and reporting has been around since the 1960s, and many countries have at

least a few examples from previous reporting processes. Environmental state-and-trends analysis presents
a “cutting the cake” dilemma since the environment is a complex subject. It has fuzzy spatial and thematic
boundaries, and presents challenges to IEA practitioners in deciding on a geographic area within which to
carry out assessment, themes and issues and/or resource sectors upon which to focus analyses.

Environmental themes for the purpose of this training module are defined as broad categories of

environmental concern, sometimes related to environmental media such as air or water. Although
terminology varies, it is common to find that those same themes cross a wide range of IEA analyses. A
given environmental theme can include many environmental issues that are interconnected in a wide
variety of ways. Issues are more specific concerns with which stakeholders can directly relate (e.g.,
land degradation, air and water pollution, smog, greenhouse gas emissions). Resource sectors include
agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism and others.

IEA Training Manual Workshop for the National Reporting Toolkit (NRT) 11