Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis of the 2010 Environmental Performance Index

An assessment of the robustness of the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks requires the evaluation of uncertainties underlying the index and the sensitivity of the country rankings to the methodological choices made during the development of the Index. To test this robustness, the Yale and Columbia University have continued their partnership with the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy. This JRC report shows that the 2010 EPI has an architecture that highlights the complexity of translating environmental stewardship into straightforward, clear-cut policy recipes. The trade-offs within the index dimensions are a reminder of the danger of compensability between dimensions while identifying the areas where more work is needed to achieve a coherent framework in particular in terms of the relative importance of the indicators that compose the EPI framework. The 2010 EPI is developed for 163 countries and is based on twenty five indicators grouped in ten policy categories: Environmental burden of disease, Air pollution (effects on humans), Water (effects on humans), Air Pollution (effects on ecosystem), Water (effects on ecosystem), Biodiversity & Habitat, Forestry, Fisheries, Agriculture and Climate Change. The EPI ranking is assessed by evaluating how sensitive the country ranks are to the assumptions made on the index structure and the aggregation of the 25 underlying indicators. The assumptions tested are: ¿ measurement error of the raw data, ¿ EPI structure ¿ grouping at policy categories, ¿ weights assigned to the indicators and/or to the policy categories, ¿ aggregation function at the policy or at the objectives level, and ¿ number of indicators or policy categories.

SALTELLI Andrea;  SAISANA Michaela; 

2010-02-23

Publications Office of the European Union

JRC56990

978-92-79-15071-5,   

1018-5593,   

EUR 24269 EN,    OP LB-NA-24269-EN-C,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC56990,   

10.2788/67623,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC56990/reqno_jrc56990_saisana_saltelli_2010epi_eur.pdf%5b1%5d.pdf