A first systematic review of - urban and natural - environmental indicators in relation to the programmes of the “Ten-Year-Plan-For-The-Environment (DECAMB)”

[Research performed on behalf of the Ministry of the Environment, 1993]

The research has been performed according to an agreement with the Ministry of the Environment in 1993. It aimed at delivering an organic and systematic set of parameters and indicators (used or usable) in relation to the programmes of the “Ten-Year-Plan-For-The-Environment” (DECAMB) , studied by the Ministry of the Environment in the years 1990-1991; it draws from different programming experiences (in various European countries and at international organisations) and also from literature.

This research, also financed by additional grants from the CNR, allowed the Centre to collect and select an important dossier on environmental indicators, which was sufficiently unknown and marginal even in international literature.

The research has been divided into the following different parts:

•  General aspects on the use of environmental planning indicators;

•  The environmental indicators in different sectorial programmes;

•  Utilisation of environmental indicators in relation to specific purposes of environmental accounting.

The Centre has waited for a long time for the research to be published either by the Ministry of Environment or by the National Research Council. However – according to the scandalous habits that are largely common in this country – neither of the two institutions, which at least gave some means (even if modest) in order to finance the research (supposedly because they were persuaded of its utility), gave any signs of life or interest in respect to the results of the research, which would at least have assured its diffusion (not to mention the obligation to assess the results in order to justify the means to the tax-payer).

The Centre has tardily (in 1995) provided a limited print of such research here published.