Integrating sustainable development information

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities. Agenda 21 recommends that governments should consider undertaking the necessary institutional changes at the national level to achieve integration of environmental and developmental information.

The Coordination of Information on the Environment Programme (CORINE) was adopted by the EU in 1985. The objective of CORINE was to assemble basic information on the state of the Community environment and to improve its consistency, while assessing comparability and availability of data and methods of analysing data. The original four-year programme was extended in 1990 for a further two years. It comprised several sub-projects: CORINE-Air, CORINE-Land-Cover, CORINE-Biotopes, CORINE-Soils, CORINE-Erosion. Only CORINE-Air and CORINE-Land-Cover, and partially CORINE-Biotopes are being continued, under the responsibility of the European Environment Agency. CORINE-Biotopes was updated by a few western European countries from 1990, while the further work is being carried out by several PHARE countries. The European Environment Agency has produced a CD-ROM which includes the present status of the CORINE-Biotopes database as well as the CORINE-Land-Cover database.

The Agency's Multi-Annual Work Programme for the period 1994-1999 is structured as follows: (1) dissemination and pooling of existing information and know-how; (2) periodical reports on the state of the environment; (3) guidelines for reports/assessments/data processing of special interest at European level; (4) media-oriented monitoring; (5) assessment of the state and trends of the environment; (6) source-oriented monitoring; (7) assessment of pressures; (8) integrated environmental assessment – problems areas and sectors; (9) scenarios for environmental improvement; (10) and instruments and challenges for environmental policy development and implementation.