Input-output development and ecosystem extent accounts using national land cover data

ongoing

The following grant project proposal is against the background of the general objectives of the call suggesting a two work package grant-project involving input output-development and ecosystem extent accounting using national land cover data. Work package 1 on adapting FIGARO to national input-output needs will focus on methodological improvements to Statistics Sweden's current model for producing statistics on the environmental impact of consumption. This includes improvements such as adjusting key procedures for aligning industry/product classifications in the FIGARO database with those in Statistics Sweden's data, retrospective extension of FIGARO data, investigating methods to handle outliers in FIGARO and developing methods to aggregate matrix variables with negligible values. Coordination of an international expert workshop on FIGARO database applications for producing statistics on the environmental impact of consumption will also be included. The workshop will facilitate knowledge exchange between international experts in this field and could support the ongoing UN process to update guidelines on input-output analysis within the international standard for environmental accounting (SEEA CF). Additionally, it may help to enhance Statistics Sweden's ability to influence the development of international standards in this area. Work package 2 on national land cover data for ecosystem extent accounts will explore the possibility of using national land cover data to generate statistics on ecosystem extent accounts. If successful, national data could be used to produce statistics that will be reported to Eurostat. This work could lead to statistics that are better adapted to the needs of national users, thereby improving their quality. This would be an improvement compared to applying European data sources, which are poorly suited to Swedish conditions—for instance, they significantly underestimate wetland areas, an important ecosystem type in Sweden.