Environment and Natural Resources Survey

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    NAME OF ORGANISATION
    Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

    OVERVIEW
    The Environment and Natural Resources Survey collects environment protection and natural resource management financial data from local government authorities. Survey results are published in Environment Expenditure, Local Government, Australia (ABS Cat. No. 4611.0). Local government is seen as one of the primary service providers for environment and natural resource management related services.

    PURPOSE
    The survey collects information on environment protection and natural resource management related transactions from local government. This information is published in Environment Expenditure, Local Government, Australia (ABS Cat. no. 4611.0). Users identified for this survey are:

    • National Office of Local Government
    • Australian Centre for Regional and Local Government Studies, University of Canberra
    • Academics and researchers
    • Environment Australia
    • CRC for waste management
    • State Offices of Local Government
    • Local government authorities
    • Australian Local Government Association
    • State environment protection agencies
    • Murray-Darling Basin Commission

    SCOPE
    All local government authorities except aboriginal regional councils.

    DATA DETAIL

    Conceptual framework
    The Framework works under the principles of the System of Integrated Environment Economic Accounts (SEEA) and the European System for the Collection of Economic Information on the Environment (SERIEE). This survey of local government aims to collect detailed data that are not available through Government Finance Statistics.
    The collection is aimed at detailing information about the linkage between the economy and the environment. Local government is the major service provider for environment protection activities for the household population and for the majority of commercial and light industrial enterprises.
    The collection aims at the provision of information that will be a source for local government, community groups and State and Commonwealth government, and which can also be aggregated to relate to a national accounts format.
    The main data sought by this collection are on a number of exclusive domains:

    • Waste water management
    • Solid waste management
    • Conservation of biodiversity and habitat
    • Protection of soil resources
    • Other environment protection
    • Water supply management
    • Land use and management
    • Other natural resource use and management
    Within each category, a series of questions relating to a council's income, current expenses and capital expenses are used to determine how the council interacts with their users (industry and households) in the provision of environment protection and natural resource management services.

    Main outputs
    For 4611.0:
    Local government authorities: estimates of income, expenditure and capital expenditure on environment protection by State; by category, and by size of council.
    Local government authorities: estimates of income, expenditure and capital expenditure on natural resource management by State; by category, and by size of council.

    Classifications
    The survey is based on international guidelines on environmental accounting in the United Nations System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA 1993). The survey also draws on guidelines from the European Statistical Agency's European System for the Collection of Economic Information on the Environment (SERIEE).
    Geographic classifications used are the Australian Standard Geographic Classification (ASGC), and catchment management areas defined by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.
    There are three council population size ranges defined for the survey according to Estimated Resident Population (ERP).

    Other concepts (summary)


    GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
    Australia
    New South Wales
    Victoria
    Queensland
    South Australia
    Western Australia
    Tasmania
    Northern Territory
    Other (specify below)

    Comments and/or Other Regions
    The ACT has no local government authorities and is therefore not included in this publication. Christmas Island is included in Western Australia. The 'other' geographic area included for the collection was the Murray-Darling Basin. Output for eight amalgamated catchment areas making up the Murray-Darling Basin was also compiled and provided to the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, which funded an expansion to the sample to allow for complete enumeration of councils in the Murray-Darling Basin.

    COLLECTION FREQUENCY
    Other

    Frequency comments
    The survey was conducted annually for 1998/99, 1999/2000 and 2000/01. No survey was conducted for 2001/02. No survey is planned for 2003-04 and the survey will be subjected to further development before being conducted again.

    COLLECTION HISTORY
    1997-98 the ENRS was run as a voluntary survey and the results were published as experimental estimates. In 1998-99 the ENRS was collected under the Census and Statistics Act for the first time. Subsequent surveys were run for the financial years 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2002-03.

    DATA AVAILABILITY
    Yes

    Data availability comments



    DATE OF LAST UPDATE FOR THIS DOCUMENT
    05/11/2004 09:17 AM