ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATOR

(1) Ideally, any measure of the ‘integrity, stability and sustainability of the biological and physical environment, especially those aspects that can, like miners’ canaries, warn of impending rapid change’ (Berger, 1996: 3). Such ‘state-of-the-environment indicators’ take many forms (e.g. bio-indicators, ecosystem indicators and geo-indicators) and relate to the many important issues concerning both natural environmental change and changes in the environment due to human impacts on local, regional and global scales. Some indicators are composite measures, which combine more than one environmental factor.

[Page 355](2) More generally, the term is used for any biological or physical indicator of environmental conditions, either at present or in the past. indicator species are often used in this way. In the palaeosciences, environmental indicators provide the basis for inferring and reconstructing past environmental conditions.

[See alsobiomarker, ecologicalindicator, environmental health, global environmental change, interaction indicator, palaeoenvironmental indicator, seasonality indicator, synthesis indicator]