| Development
of SOLEC Land Use and Societal Indicators for the Great Lakes Basin
The State of the Lakes
Ecosystem Conference, is a biennial conference to report on the
health of the Great Lakes basin ecosystem and on progress towards
the goals of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Hosted by
the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and Environment
Canada, the SOLEC conferences in 1994 and 1996 examined the
state of various components of the ecosystem through the use of
ad hoc indicators, and provided subjective assessments of certain
environmental conditions. SOLEC 98 and 2000 presented, reviewed,
and refined a comprehensive suite of 80 Great Lakes ecosystem health
indicators.
In preparation
for SOLEC 2002, the GEM Center conducted a project to further develop
five societal and one land use indicator from the SOLEC suite. This
project, funded by the USEPA Great Lakes National Program Office,
focused on the following indicators of priority interest to SOLEC:
- Green Planning
Process (#7053)
- Capacities
of Sustainable Landscape Partnerships (#3509)
- Organizational
Richness of Sustainable Landscape Partnerships (#3510)
- Integration
of Ecosystem Management Principles Across Landscapes (#3511)
- Integration
of Sustainability Principles Across Landscapes (#3512)
- Citizen/Community
Place-Based Stewardship Activities (#3513)
Feedback to
SOLEC recommended dropping or replacing all but the first and last
indicators above, so the project shifted focus accordingly and contributed
reports for three additional indicators, updated from earlier research
• Population
Density (#7000)
• Economic Prosperity (#7043)
• Energy Consumption (#7057
For more information
on these and other indicators, see the SOLEC
Implementing Indicators 2003 summary and technical reports
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