Fact Sheets

Meet Zoe, our State of the Environment reporting (SoE) friend. Zoe will take you on a journey through South Australia's 22 key environmental issues from the State of the Environment report for South Australia 2003. For a copy of the full report, visit the environment reporting site.

Documents for download from this site are in PDF format and you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them. The reader is free and can be downloaded from the Adobe website.

Fact Sheets by Issue

Atmosphere

1. Air quality
2. Climate change
3. Ozone depletion

Inland Waters

4. River Murray
5. Rivers, Streams and wetlands
6. Water use
7. Water quality

Coasts and the Sea

8. Aquaculture
9. Fisheries
10. Health of the marine and coastal environment

Land Resources

11. Dryland salinity
12. Land use
13. Soil erosion and acidity

Biodiversity

14. Introduced species
15. Native vegetation
16. Threatened species

Human Settlements

17. Energy
18. Population and urban form
19. Transport
20. Waste
21. Water consumption in urban settlements

Heritage

22. Heritage

What is an Indicator?

Environmental indicators help track changes in the environment. They are key measures in finding out the major trends and changes within a system and help to make the reporting process simpler. They can be measured and reported on frequently, and their information can be gathered and interpreted in a uniform manner over time. The fact sheets use 3 types of indicators:

• Pressure indicators describe the pressures from human activity that affect the environment

• State (or condition) indicators measure the quality of the environment and the functioning of important environmental processes

• Response indicators identify the human actions or efforts that have been made to address pressures on the environment.

Linking the Issues to Each Other

An important consideration for achieving sustainable practice is the recognition that different aspects of the environment and community are related to each other. For example, waste is listed under the theme 'Human settlements', but poor waste management can also impact on the other environmental themes. Waste issues may cause biodiversity loss, the release of more greenhouse gases, pollution of waterways, land degradation and reductions in heritage value. Not only do the different themes relate to each other, but they also impact on other areas in the community such as health, the economy and culture.

Each fact sheet has a section that outlines the impacts that the particular issue has on other parts of the environment. Make sure you look for the images below to see how the issue you are reading about affects other aspects of the environment and community. This will help us to understand more about impacts on sustainability.

Atmosphere		Human settlements
Biodiversity		Heritage
	Coasts and the sea	Health
Inland waters		Economy
Land resources		Culture

Taking Action

When you see the taking action symbol in the fact sheets, you can learn about the things that you can do in your life to help make our society more sustainable. It is important to learn about environmental issues, and even more important to act on the information we have learned. Without action, how can we achieve sustainable change in our community?

Find out about the action you can take here. You can also learn about the projects you can take part in, or how to develop your own environmental project.