Information needs for environmental policy making : some orientations for the future

Abstract

Recent good practice has highlighted the need for evidence-based policy in all fields, including that of the environment (1). There is an ongoing need for reliable information to inform the policymaking process. A strong evidence-base also contributes to more robust design and assessment of policy options. In the environmental field, the putting in place of environmental monitoring processes and the regular publication of state of the environment reports have contributed significantly to providing a better evidence base for policy. The EU-funded ERDF project has played an important role in upgrading national environmental monitoring programmes, and further related projects also addressing particular thematic areas in the environmental field are planned for the next structural funding period up to 2020. This paper puts forward a set of orientations for the future to be taken into account in order to improve the evidence base to support national environmental policy-making processes, including the monitoring of existing policies, now that the data from the ERDF monitoring project is becoming available. The basis of the analysis is the authors’ work on monitoring the implementation of the National Environment Policy and previously on state of the environment reporting.