The First National Workshop on Environment
Statistics was organized at Goa during 12-13 January, 1998 as a part of a
project on Institutional Strengthening and Collection of Environment Statistics
funded by Asian Development Bank. The Directorate of Planning, Statistics and
Evaluation, Government of Goa assisted the Central Statistical Organisation in
hosting the Workshop. 20 papers were presented at the workshop in different
technical sessions. The important recommendations made by the workshop are as
follows:-
i)
Conduct of similar workshops at the regional level by involving State
departments of
environment, forests, pollution control boards and other local
organizations for
database
development;
ii) Continued publication of the
Compendium on Environment Statistics at regular
intervals, increased interaction between data producers and users to
improve the
coverage of the publication and production of similar publications at
State level;
iii)
Strengthening of the Environment Statistics Unit and expansion of
membership of the
Steering Committee on Environment Statistics to include other data source
agencies
and academic users, and establishment of linkages with the
Environmental
Information System (ENVIS)
of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOFF)
for database development and maintenance
iv) Development of
sound statistical methodologies for estimation of generic, specific,
and ecosystembiodiversities; and
v) More
frequent interactions (in the form of training courses and
seminar/workshops)
between statisticians and environmental scientists to clarify concepts
and
definitions as well as methodologies used in environment statistics and
formation
of small technical committees within CSO composed of representatives of
the
offices dealing with environment and statistics to identify new data to
be included
in the Compendium, standardize concepts and definitions of terms
etc.