Indicators of sustainable development for catchment management in South Africa - Review of indicators from around the world

Indicators are the ideal means by which progress towards sustainable development can be measured. However, most indicator initiatives throughout the world have been aimed at state-of-the-environment reporting, with relatively few aimed at developing sectoral indicators. The paper provides the results of a review to establish trends in the development of indicators that assist in integrated water resource management. Twenty-one organizations from around the world were approached with regard to whether they had development indicators of sustainable development for catchment management. Of these, only five organisations had development, or were in the process of developing, indicator sets that were available for review. These included the Fraser Basin Council (Canada), the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (Australia), the Tennessee Valley Authority (USA), the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the World Resources Institute. All of these indicator sets were developed using an issues-based approach. Each indicator set was unique, reflecting the policy, both national and organisational, upon which it had been based. An analysis of these five indicator sets revealed that the most important themes that required information for water resource management at a catchment level, were biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, land-use change, water quality, waste production, water availability and resource use. Common indicators included population growth; community involvement; water availability; water use; water quality trends; soil contamination; non-compliance; species at risk; key species assessment; change in vegetation; agricultural impact; access to recreational opportunities, and ecosystem health. The identification of these themes and common indicators will be useful for the development of indicators for catchment management in South Africa. More importantly, policy frameworks and the physical characteristics of catchment systems in the country need to be taken into account. Additionally, it is recognised that no effective indicator set can be development without the input of stakeholders.