Environment at a Glance in the EU Eastern Partnership Countries

Glossary

Natural asset base

Land cover is the observed physical and biological cover of the Earth’s surface, including natural vegetation, abiotic (non-living) surfaces, and inland waters. Note that land cover is different from land use, which refers to the economic activities or institutional arrangements in a given area (e.g., wild prairie, pasture, and golf course are different uses of grassland areas).

Natural and semi-natural land: Designates land covered by natural or seminatural vegetation with a limited anthropogenic footprint as a proxy for land that is important for maintaining biodiversity and providing higher-value ecosystem services at the global scale.

Loss of natural and semi-natural vegetated land is defined as the diminution of vegetated land in natural and semi-natural state expressed as a percentage of the 'stock' in the previous time period (i.e., intensity of loss). The indicator is currently measured as the percentage of tree-covered area, grassland, wetland, shrubland, and sparse vegetation converted to any other land cover type.

Gain of natural and semi-natural vegetated land, defined similarly as above. It is a new addition to land covered by natural and semi-natural vegetation converted from other land cover types. Both the losses and the gains (net change) are expressed in relation to the same denominator, measuring the inflows and outflows from the same stock of (semi-)natural land.

A built-up area is defined as an area with buildings (roofed structures). This definition largely excludes other parts of urban environments and the human footprint, such as paved surfaces (roads, parking lots), commercial and industrial sites (ports, landfills, quarries, runways), and urban green spaces (parks, gardens). Consequently, such built-up areas may differ from other urban data that use alternative definitions.

Artificial surfaces as defined by the EEA (2018): Continuous and discontinuous urban fabric (housing areas), industrial, commercial and transport units, road and rail networks, dump sites and extraction sites, but also green urban areas. The SEEA Central Framework defines them as any urban or related feature, including urban parks, industrial areas, waste dump deposits, and extraction sites.

Water abstraction refers to water taken from ground or surface water sources and conveyed to the place of use. If the water is returned to a surface water source, the downstream user's abstraction of the same water is counted again when compiling the total withdrawal.

Water stress from internal resources measures the total gross abstractions of freshwater expressed as a percentage of total internal renewable freshwater resources (precipitation net of evapotranspiration).

Water stress from renewable resources measures the total gross abstractions of freshwater expressed as a percentage of total available renewable freshwater resources (including inflows from neighbouring countries).

The intensity of use of natural freshwater resources (or water stress) is expressed as gross freshwater abstraction in % of total available renewable freshwater resources (including inflows from neighbouring countries) or in % of internal freshwater resources (i.e. precipitation - evapotranspiration). Water used for hydroelectricity generation (considered an in situ use) is excluded. Freshwater resources: the data refer to long-term annual averages over a minimum period of 30 consecutive years.

The following stress levels can be distinguished:

Low (less than 10%): generally, no major stress exists on the available resources.

Moderate (10% to 20%): indicates that water availability issues are becoming a constraint on development, and significant investments are needed to provide adequate supplies.

Medium-high (20% to 40%) implies managing both supply and demand, and conflicts among competing uses need to be resolved.

High (more than 40%): indicates serious scarcity and usually shows unsustainable water use, which can become a limiting factor in social and economic development.

Environmental resource productivity

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from energy use (production-based CO₂ emissions): Refer to gross direct CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion emitted within the national territory. Human-caused emissions from other sources are not included. Emissions from oil held in international marine and aviation bunkers are excluded. CO₂ removal by sinks, indirect emissions from land use changes and indirect effects through interactions in the atmosphere are not taken into account.

Total energy supply: Total energy supply (TES) is made up of production + imports – exports – international marine bunkers – international aviation bunkers ± stock changes. Primary energy comprises coal, peat and peat products, oil shale, natural gas, crude oil and oil products, nuclear, and renewable energy (bioenergy, geothermal, hydropower, ocean, solar and wind). Electricity trade is included in the total primary energy supply but excluded from the calculation of the breakdown by source.

The share of renewables in the production of electricity. The main renewable forms are hydro, geothermal, wind, biomass, waste and solar energy.

Electricity production is the sum of electricity produced by the main electricity producers, those for whom it is the main economic activity, and the auto-producers, those for whom it is, at best, a second economic purpose.

Domestic Material Consumption refers to the amount of materials directly used in an economy, which refers to the apparent consumption of materials.

Material Footprint refers to the global allocation of used raw materials extracted to meet an economy's final demand.

Recycling is defined as any reprocessing of material in a production process that diverts it from the waste stream, except for reuse as fuel. Both reprocessing are the same type of product and should be included for different purposes. Direct recycling within industrial plants at the place of generation should be excluded.

Composting is defined as a biological process that submits biodegradable waste to anaerobic or aerobic decomposition, resulting in a product (compost) that is added to soil to improve fertility.

Incinerating is the thermal treatment of waste during which chemically fixed energy of combusted matters is transformed into thermal energy. Combustible compounds are transformed into combustion gases, leaving the system as flue gases. Incombustible inorganic matters remain in the form of slag and fly ash. Incinerating includes incinerating with or without energy recovery.

Landfilling is defined as depositing waste into or onto land in a controlled manner. It includes specially engineered landfills and temporary storage of over one year on permanent sites. The definition covers both landfills in internal sites (i.e. where a generator of waste disposes of its own waste at the place of generation) and in external sites. Landfill waste includes all amounts going to landfill, either directly or after sorting and/or treatment. Controlled landfilling requires submission to a permit system and technical control procedures in compliance with the national legislation in force.

Municipal waste: Waste collected by or on behalf of municipalities. It includes household waste originating from households (i.e. waste generated by the domestic activity of households) and similar waste from small commercial activities, office buildings, institutions such as schools and government buildings, and small businesses that treat or dispose of waste at the same facilities used for municipally collected waste.

Environmental quality of life

Mean population exposure to fine particulates (PM2.5): Expressed as the mass of PM2.5 per cubic meter, it is calculated as the mean annual outdoor PM2.5 concentration weighted by the population living in the relevant area, that is, the concentration level, expressed in μg/m3, to which a typical resident is exposed throughout a year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) guideline for PM2.5 is that annual mean concentrations should not exceed ten micrograms per cubic meter, representing the lower range over which adverse health effects have been observed. The WHO has also recommended guidelines for the emission of PM2.5 from household burning fuels.

Mortality here is based on premature deaths.

Premature deaths are calculated as the number of premature deaths attributed to exposure to environmental risks, expressed in absolute value per million inhabitants of the same age group and sex (mortality), and as a percentage of total attributable premature deaths. Total attributable premature deaths include premature deaths due to environmental and occupational risks, behavioural risks, and metabolic risks.

The welfare costs of premature deaths from exposure to environment-related risks are expressed in millions constant 2015 USD using PPP, compared to GDP as percentage points of GDP equivalent per person (total population across age groups and sex) and as a percentage of the welfare cost of total attributable premature deaths.

Cost estimates represent only the cost of premature mortalities. They are calculated using estimates of the “Value of a Statistical Life” (VSL) and the number of premature deaths attributable to each environmental risk. They exclude any morbidity impacts (labour productivity losses, treatment costs and willingness to pay to avoid pain and suffering from illness). They also exclude impacts other than those on human health (e.g. on built structures, agricultural productivity, ecosystem health). The social cost of the exposure to these environment-related risks is thus greater than the cost of mortalities presented in this chapter. Yet the available evidence suggests that mortality costs account for the bulk of the total costs to society. Finally, VSL also captures nonmarket values that are unrelated to expenditures and, therefore, not an integral part of the calculation of GDP. Consequently, the cost estimates are compared with GDP only for illustration.

Value of a statistical life (VSL) is derived from aggregating individuals’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) to secure a marginal reduction in the risk of premature death. Therefore, the welfare cost is evaluated in terms of what the population at large would be “willing to pay” to avoid the mortalities due to exposure to environment-related risks.

Annual surface temperature change is with respect to the baseline climatology (1981-2010). The calculation is based on the Copernicus CDS temperature data (ERA5) is a global gridded product with a 0.25° spatial resolution (~ 27.75 km) containing per pixel information of daily minimum and maximum air temperature at 2 m above the land’s surface from 1979 to present.

Annual percentage of population exposed to hot summer days, measured as days where the maximum daily temperature exceeds 35°C. Data are expressed in percentages.

River flooding occurs when excessive rainfall results in the river exceeding the channel capacity and spilling into the adjacent areas. Population exposure to river floods at different territorial levels was computed using the Global Human Settlement Layer Population grid linearly interpolated to 2020 based on 2000 and 2015.

Population exposure to wildfire danger assesses locations where populations are exposed to a very high wildfire danger and accounts for vegetation biomass as well as historical fire events and burned area data. The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) population grids developed by the European Commission’s JRC allow for the estimation of the population count present in areas with a very high (> 5) or extreme (> 6) fire danger based on the FWI index.

Icing days are defined as days when the daily maximum temperature is below 0° Celsius. The population exposure is the share of the population exposed to such climate hazards for at least one and a maximum of fourteen days per year.

Improved drinking-water sources are defined as those that are likely to be protected from outside contamination and from faecal matter in particular. Improved water sources include household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs and rainwater collection. Unimproved water sources include unprotected wells, unprotected springs, surface water (e.g. river, dam or lake), vendor-provided water, bottled water (unless water for other uses is available from an improved source) and tanker truck-provided water.

Improved sanitation facilities are defined as those that hygienically separate human waste from human contact. Improved sanitation includes flush or pour-flush to piped sewer system, septic tank pit latrines, ventilated-improved pit latrines, or pit latrines with slab or composting toilets. Shared or public-use sanitation facilities are not considered to be improved. Also, flush or pour-flush to elsewhere, pit latrines without slabs or open pits, bucket latrines, hanging latrines or open defecation are not considered to be improved sanitation.

Economic opportunities and policy responses

Indicators of technology development are constructed by measuring inventive activity using patent data across a wide range of environment-related technological domains (ENVTECH), including environmental management, water-related adaptation, and climate change mitigation technologies. The counts used here include only higher-value inventions.

Terrestrial protected areas are areas of land especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity and of natural and associated cultural resources and managed through legal or other effective means. The data refer to the World Conservation Union (IUCN) management categories I-VI. National classifications may differ.

Socio-economic context

GDP per person: GDP per person measures a country’s economic wealth of the population of a nation. However, as a mean value, it does not reflect income distribution. Moreover, it is a 'gross' measure of income, and no account is taken of the depreciation neither of produced assets nor the depletion of natural assets. GDP per person measures a country’s economic wealth of the population of a nation. However, as a mean value, it does not reflect income distribution. Moreover, it is a 'gross' measure of income, and no account is taken of the depreciation neither of produced assets nor of the depletion of natural assets.

Informal economic sector: the part of the economy that is neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government.

Population: Population is the de facto population in a country, area or region as of 1 July of the year indicated. The main source of population data is the World Population Prospects database from the United Nations, complemented with data from the World Development Indicators of the World Bank.