Ympäristöindikaattori Miljöindikator A parameter or a value derived from parameters that describe the state of the environment and its impact on human beings, ecosystems and materials, the pressures on the environment, the driving forces and the responses steering that system. An indicator has gone through a selection and/or aggregation process to enable it to steer action.
a measure that presents scientifically based information on the status of, and trends in, environmentally related parameters
an element of an ecosystem that suggests the health of the rest of the system
Physical, chemical, biological or socio-economic measures that can be sued to assess natural resources and environmental quality
Something that serves as an indicator of the health of an ecosystem, community of organisms, or defined area. A fever thermometer is an indicator of your well-being when it measures your body temperature. Researchers often use the presence or absence of a species as a monitoring device for the health of a place. When it became obvious in recent years that frogs were declining in abundance in many parts of the world, scientists realized that the decline was an indicator of something - of what, they’re still not sure. (For a closer look, click here.)
An environmental indicator can be a measurable feature or features that provide managerially and scientifically useful evidence of environmental and ecosystem quality or reliable evidence of trends in quality. Thus, environmental indicators must be measurable with available technology, scientifically valid for assessing or documenting ecosystem quality, and useful for providing information for management decisionmaking. Indicators can be used to: compare current conditions with desired performance, show trends over time, to allow comparisons between different regions, help judge the sustainability of current practices, and define and publicise new standards and measures for assessing progress toward a sustainable future.
A measurement, statistic or value that provides a proximate gauge or evidence of the effects of environmental management programs or of the state or condition of the environment.
Environmental indicators are variables or measures that supply information about what is happening in the environment when it is not possible to monitor or measure every component of the environment due to technical and/or financial reasons. Environmental indicators normally include physical, biological and chemical measures. Since the environment is very complex, indicators provide a faster, easier and more economical way to find out what is happening than if researchers attempted to measure and record every variable in the environment.
