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About the Evaluation Centre

The Evaluation Centre (EC) is a project team comprised of CENIA employees who work together with experts in environment evaluation.

The Evaluation Centre is a tool for methodical development and methodical management and is aimed at systematically resolving tasks in the area of environmental evaluation.

The establishment of the Evaluation Centre is based on the current situation in environmental evaluation and on the needs of the Ministry of the Environment (MoE) in relation to the preparation of an updated State Environmental Policy. Evaluations are not unified, the state of environmental components and the environmental load are evaluated separately; evaluation methodologies are not standardized. This state does not allow for a comprehensive view or cross-section environmental evaluation, including the identification of all connections, even socio-economic (i.e. the interaction between environmental components and the socio-economic sphere and between individual components). The national system of environmental reporting is not clearly related to the process of creating environmental policy. The frequency of publishing different products is not in line with the current environmental development dynamics and there is a lot of duplication among documents submitted to the government.

From the long-term perspective, the Evaluation Centre will be connected to an external data, methodical and expert platform via a network of organisations and experts (analogous to the EIONET network) that will participate in drafting evaluations (under the methodical guidance of CENIA). The expert network will exceed the framework of both the environment and the Czech Republic and it will also include organisations that collect and process data on the state of different environmental components and evaluate environmental loads. The network will also include universities representing experts and research. The involvement of a wide range of expertise and competencies will increase the quality and efficiency of the entire evaluation process.

The development of the network has been launched by preparing cooperation agreements (the Memorandum) among four organisations (CENIA, the Agency for Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection of the Czech Republic, the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and the Czech Geology Service) and entering into a cooperation agreement with the Environmental Centre at Charles University in Prague.

Responsibilities of the partners will be as follows:

CENIA

• Proposes, develops and implements evaluation reports
• Coordinates and methodically controls the evaluation process (the choice of suitable evaluation tools, co-development of indicators, etc.)
• Ensures customer service; adjusts EC outputs to customers’ needs (especially the MoE)

Environmental organisations

• Ensure environmental monitoring and process data on the state of the environment
• Interpret and analyse data pursuant to CENIA’s assessment
• Provide underlying data for thematically relevant indicators from the basic set

Universities

• Ensure an expert level of evaluations; supply the latest scientific knowledge as far as the interpretation of trends, environmental loads, relationships between the loads, state and consequences (e.g. a link between the environment and human health.)

The basic objectives of the Evaluation Centre are as follows:

• Carry out evaluations of the state and the development of the environment and create future development scenarios
• Propose and evaluate measures and tools that affect the state of the environment

What are the Evaluation Centre activities?

• Prepare evaluation reports:
  • Prepare the Report on the Environment of the Czech Republic for the Government and the Parliament of the Czech Republic
  • Prepare reports on the state of the environment in Czech Republic’s region for regional authorities and the public
• Coordinate work on comprehensive evaluation reports on the environment within the environmental department
• Perform evaluation analyses involving the state and development of the environment in the Czech Republic
• Coordinate and methodically guide the creation of environmental scenarios and outlooks
• Participate in the practical application of selected environmental protection measures
• Monitor statistical data and information on environmental protection measures and prepare underlying documents, presentations and analyses based on collected statistical data
• Prepare methodologies for evaluating the efficiency of environmental protection measures from the environmental and socio-economic aspects

What has been achieved?

• The Memorandum of Cooperation between 4 departmental organisations has been prepared and the cooperation agreement with the Environment Centre has been entered into
• A set of key environmental indicators in the Czech Republic has been put together (based on the Core Set of EEA indicators)
• A new draft environmental reporting concept has been compiled and submitted
• The current Report on the Environment has been evaluated and a new concept has been proposed (effective from the 2008 Report, an annual indicator report will be compiled based on a set of key indicators and a five-year Compendium containing environmental scenarios and outlooks – the first issue will be published in 2011)
• The foundations for the development of environmental scenarios and outlooks have been laid
• Information systems and data sources available to CENIA have been partially used

Where is the Evaluation Centre heading?

• Towards creating an institutional and knowledge network for evaluation both at the national and international levels
• Towards effective support for the Ministry of the Environment and other public administration bodies in identifying and formulating objectives and measures in the environment (especially in relation to the State Environmental Policy)
• Towards understanding different environmental protection instruments, the support of their proper use and a systematic evaluation of their use
• Towards interconnecting the Evaluation Centre’s activities with the EEA activities and towards cooperation on EEA reports (SOER and others).

Contact:
RNDr. Lenka Olivová
lenka.olivova@cenia.cz, +420 267 225 207

Mgr. Helena Kollarová
helena.kollarova@cenia.cz, +420 267 225 231