System of Social Indicators for the Federal Republic of Germany: Environment

The system of social indicators for the Federal Republic of Germany - developed in its original version as part of the SPES project under the direction of Wolfgang Zapf - provides quantitative information on levels, distributions and changes in quality of life, social progress and social change in Germany from 1950 to 2013, i.e. over a period of more than sixty years. With the approximately 400 objective and subjective indicators that the indicator system comprises in total, it claims to measure welfare and quality of life in Germany in a differentiated way across various areas of life and to monitor them over time. In addition to the indicators for 13 areas of life, including income, education and health, a selection of cross-cutting global welfare measures were also included in the indicator system, i.e. general welfare indicators such as life satisfaction, social isolation or the Human Development Index. Based on available data from official statistics and survey data, time series were compiled for all indicators, ideally with annual values from 1950 to 2013. Around 90 of the indicators were marked as "key indicators" in order to highlight central dimensions of welfare and quality of life across the various areas of life. The further development and expansion, regular maintenance and updating as well as the provision of the data of the system of social indicators for the Federal Republic of Germany have been among the tasks of the Center for Social Indicator Research, which is based at GESIS, since 1987. For a detailed description of the system of social indicators for the Federal Republic of Germany, see the study description under "Other documents".<br>Supply of environmental goods [first level]: Forest areas; Settlement and traffic areas; Quality of environmental conditions [first level]: Carbon dioxide emissions per inhabitant; Sulfur dioxide emissions per inhabitant; Nitrogen oxide emissions per inhabitant; Dust emissions per inhabitant; Proportion of damaged forest areas; Subjective perception and evaluation of environmental conditions [first level]: Satisfaction with environmental protection; Concern about protecting the environment; Complaint about the quality of drinking water; Complaint about lack of access to green spaces; Complaint about the destruction of the landscape; Complaint about air pollution; Air pollution concerns; Concern about climate change; Concern about water pollution; Environmentally damaging activities [first level]: Domestic waste generation per inhabitant; Mileage in individual transport per inhabitant; Ensuring environmental quality [first level]: Reusable share of beverage consumption [time series, data]: Share of environmental protection expenditure in GDP; Share of government spending on environmental protection in GDP; Area share of nature reserves; Total number of environmental crimes.