‘State of the Environment’ reporting is the internationally accepted method for assessing environmental performance. Like many other countries, Australia adopts the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) pressure–state–response approach to state of the environment reporting. Queensland also adopts this approach.
This is Queensland’s eighth State of the Environment report and the third to be prepared in a web-based format. This format allows users to interact within a web-based environment, interrogating spatial data and maps with regionally-specific interpretive text, tables, graphs and charts. The data is harvested from a range of thematic sources, and compiled, interpreted and published through the Queensland Government open data portal.
This report covers the period from 2018 to the end of the 2020 financial year, and meets the legislative requirements of both the Environmental Protection Act 1994 and the Coastal Protection and Management Act 1995.
This report is structured around five themes — Biodiversity, Heritage, Pollution, Climate and Liveability. Each theme is divided into sub-themes against which a total of 153 indicators, mainly relating to extent and condition (state), and pressures, are reported on. There are also two cross-cutting composite themes — Great Barrier Reef and Climate Change. It also includes an outline of the actions or initiatives undertaken to protect, maintain and restore environmental assets, as well as those that prevent, mitigate or adapt to changes in the environment.
This report also includes cutting edge themes, such as mapping its indicators and management responses to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, explaining the circular economy model, and introducing Queenslanders to environmental-economic accounts. This approach establishes a framework that will enable future reports to adopt methodologies that integrate economic and environmental data to provide a more comprehensive and multipurpose view of the interactions between the economy and the environment, and benefits that flow to humanity.
The structure of this report is as follows:
Explore. Share. Learn. Queensland’s State of the Environment Report 2020 is more than just a report — it’s a resource.
Previous reports
The State of the Environment Report 2020 is the eighth report prepared for Queensland. The following reports have also been published: