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Module
5 Discussion Questions

Form groups of two and discuss what, if any, conceptual framework you have used in your

work. Identify and explain the framework to your colleague; draw a diagram if applicable.
9-12 December, 2013 This module is based on the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses framework. This framework is
What was your experience with the framework? When reconvening in plenary, prepare to
comment on frameworks in your list.

used in GEO reports, including the fourth Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development
(GEO-4) (see Figure 2 of Module 1). For training purposes, this training manual uses a graphically simplified
version of the GEO-4 framework, and this is presented in Figure 2. This DPSIR framework guides you in
1
telling an integrated story about an environmental issue. Arrows in the diagram indicate general cause-and-

effect relationships among components of the framework. While some relationships are straightforward
and easy to demonstrate, many linkages in environmental analyses are complex, and effects typically are
attributable to multiple causes, related to different actors, operating on multiple spatial and temporal scales.

Analysing the STATE and TRENDS of the environment is central to IEA (Figure 2). This involves identifying
priority environmental state issues, and analysing changes retrospectively through space and time.
In the context of UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook reports, typical environmental state variables
are grouped according to categories such as air, land, water and biodiversity. To effectively answer the
question What is happening to the environment and why? (Step 1, Figure 1), an analysis of state variables

must be accompanied by an understanding and appreciation of the DRIVERS (driving forces or indirect
drivers) and PRESSURES (direct drivers) that affect state variables individually and collectively. Drivers
(including demographic changes, economic and societal processes) lead to more specific pressures on
the environment (including for example, land use change, resource extraction, emissions of pollutants and
waste, and modification and movement of organisms). These pressures lead to changes of the STATE of

the environment (e.g., climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, changes in biodiversity and pollution
or degradation of air water and soils), which are in addition to those that result from natural processes.

These changes affect the ecological services that the environment provides to humankind, such as

the provision of clean air and water, food and protection from ultraviolet radiation as well as impacts
on other aspects of the environment itself, such as land degradation, habitat quality and quantity and

1. The basic structure of the diagram has been developed by the European Environment Agency (Smeets and Weterings 1999).

20 Integrated Analysis of Environmental Trends and Policies