World Environment Map
Purpose of the Map
The World Environment Map is a factual, detailed and visually attractive poster that synthesises and summarises the world’s key environmental data onto a map (900 mm x 1300mm). The Map was released in September 2002 and its development was supported by RMIT Global Sustainability, City of Melbourne and Central Queensland University.
In 2004, the World Environment Map won the Australian Geography Teachers Association Award for the best broadsheet, chart or wall map.
The World Environment Map, comprising both a spatial element and a non-spatial component (accompanying charts and tables), aims to increase awareness and knowledge of the environment and environmental issues across the World. It presents information in an easily digestible form on a variety of indicators of environmental health and performance in selected countries whilst highlighting both areas of achievement and concern.
The World Environment Map is a resource for all those with an interest in the environment – including professionals wanting a ready reference for key environmental trends, statistics and noteworthy events, and students wanting information about major environmental issues facing the world and initiatives for overcoming them.
Features
The spatial component of the World Environment Map identifies:
• Historical accidents
• Environmental blackspots
• War impacts
• Air pollution
• Urban hotspots
• Major environmental achievements
• Indicators of global warming
• Major oil spills
• Major environmental campaign sites
• Topographic features
• Terrestrial biodiversity
• Marine biodiversity
• Freshwater biodiversity
• Renewable energy initiatives
• World Heritage Areas (natural)
• Deforestation
• Desertification
• Mine tailings pollution
• Invasive species
• Nuclear accidents
• Natural phenomena
• Persistent Organic Pollutants
• Water exploitation
• Fisheries
• Water pollution
• Terrestrial hotspots
• Marine hotspots
• Natural phenomena
• Species and habitat recovery
• Ramsar wetlands
Click on these links to see close up images of the spatial information on the map:
• South America
• South East Asia
The non-spatial component of the World Environment Map comprises 50 charts and tables separated into nine categories, namely:
1. Air
2. Biodiversity
3. Coastal and marine
4. Consumption and waste
5. Energy and transport
6. Greenhouse
7. Key trends and prominent events
8. Land
9. Water
By clicking on the links above, you can view the one of the charts from each category as it looks on the Map.
Creating the Map
Essentially the Map is a synthesis of a huge amount of environmental data sourced from: books, reports, industry newsletters, company press releases, newspaper articles etc. providing a meaningful overview of environmental issues and initiatives across the world. Click here for a list of key resources used. Data for the Map was chosen by a Technical Steering Committee comprising environmental experts from professional associations, research and non-government organisations.
Sponsors and Supporters
The development of the Map was supported by RMIT Global Sustainability, City of Melbourne and Central Queensland University.
Resources
Conservation International www.conservation.org
Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora www.cites.org
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations www.fao.org
Forest Stewardship Council www.fscoax.org
UNEP Global Environment Outlook 2000 www.unep.org/geo2000
International Commission on Large Dams www.icold-cigb.org
International Energy Agency www.iea.org
International Social Sciences Council www.unesco.org/ngo/issc
Marine Stewardship Council www.msc.org
National Geophysical Data Centre (USA) www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdc.html
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (USA) www.nodc.noaa.gov
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development www.oecd.org
The World Conservation Union www.iucn.org
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) www.undp.org
World Bank www.worldbank.org/data
World Conservation Monitoring Center www.unep-wcmc.org
World Health Organisation
www.who.int
World Resources Institute 2000 – 2001 www.wri.org/wr2000
World Watch Institute www.worldwatch.org
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) www.wwf.org
