Updates

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New releases
New developments

New releases

Households and the Environment Survey: Public Use Microdata File (PUMF), 2006

The 2006 Households and the Environment: Public Use Microdata File is now available. The initial results from the Households and the Environment Survey, 2006 were released on July 11, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 11-526-X). To order a copy of the 2006 Households and the Environment Survey: Public Use Microdata File, contact the information officer, (613-951-0297; environ@statcan.ca) Environment Accounts and Statistics Division.

Released, December 10, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 16M0001X; $1,000 )

Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators

This annual report provides a summary of the key findings from Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators. It presents a synopsis for each of the report's three environmental sustainability indicators: exposure to ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter, surface freshwater quality, and greenhouse gas emissions. The report provides answers to the following questions for each of the three indicators: What is the issue? What is happening? What does it mean? Why is it happening? The indicators are intended to assist those in government responsible for developing policy and measuring performance, while also helping Canadians who want to know more about the trends in their environment.

Released, December 6, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 16-251-X)

Released, December 6, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 16-253-X)

Released, October 15, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 16-252-X)

Survey of Environmental Protection Expenditures in the Business Sector, 2004

This publication presents estimates from the Survey of Environmental Protection Expenditures in the Business Sector, 2004. The survey covers capital and operating expenditures made in 2004 by businesses, in order to anticipate or to respond to environmental regulations, conventions or voluntary agreements. In addition to statistics on environmental protection activities such as pollution prevention, end-of-pipe and environmental monitoring, statistics on the use of environmental technologies and their cost, as well as environmental management practices are presented.

Released, November 27, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 16F0006X)

Environment Surveys of Establishments: The Canadian Experience

This paper explores the development of the environment survey program at Statistics Canada, the framework within which the surveys exist and what data gaps the surveys fill. The paper will focus on Statistics Canada's experiences and challenges related to the recent development of a new environment survey on industrial water use and the methodological redesign of an existing survey on environmental protection expenditures and technology use in industry. The lessons learned serve as an input for future work related to the collection of environmental statistics.

Released, November 23, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 16-001-X)

Estimation of Water Use in Canadian Agriculture in 2001

The main objective of this study was to produce Canadian agricultural water use statistics for the reference year 2001, using several different methods. Water use was estimated for various farming activities including irrigation; spraying herbicides, insecticides and fungicides; frost protection, sanitation washing, and harvesting; on-farm processing; livestock watering, livestock sanitation and other miscellaneous uses.

Released November 13, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 21-601-X)

The new underground economy of subsoil resources

This article, published in the Canadian Economic Observer, looks in detail at how the commodity boom has affected primary industries over the last 5 years, notably the shift from forestry to energy and mining.

Released October 11, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 11-010-X)

Environment Industry: Business Sector 2002 (revised) and 2004

Information on revenues earned from sales of environmental goods and services is reported in the upcoming Environment Industry publication. Environmental goods and services are used to measure, prevent, limit or correct environmental damage to water, air and soil as well as problems related to waste, noise and ecosystems.  They also include clean or resource-efficient technologies that decrease material inputs, reduce energy consumption, recover valuable by-products, reduce emissions and/or minimize waste disposal problems.

Released September 24, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 16F0008X)

Behaviour Study on the Water Quality Index of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment

The objective of the present study is to understand and explain how the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) Water Quality Index (WQI) behaves, and at the same time determine its limitations to make a better use of it in the future. In order to do so, four data sets were made available to us thanks to participation of the following provinces: Newfoundland, Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec.

Released September 19, 2007 (Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 16-001-X)

New developments

National Pollutant Release Inventory linkage project

Allison Bone
Tracking emissions that affect global warming as well as air and water quality is an issue of importance to both Environment Canada and Statistics Canada.

Environment Canada currently collects annual pollution emissions data for over 300 substances via the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) which is under the authority of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA, 1999). However, since the NPRI is not designed to provide comprehensive estimates, there is only partial knowledge of the emissions for most substances. More comprehensive emissions data that can be linked to economic data would make a valuable contribution to the Canadian System of Environment and Resource Accounts of Statistics Canada.

Both departments have begun a project to link data on economic production and pollutant emissions in order to address the need to analyse changes in emissions over time, and also to estimate emissions intensities of various economic sectors. This project will provide Canadians with more complete and consistent data on pollution releases that go beyond the current information available through the NPRI.