Physical environment: key data sources
Environmental Determinants of Public Health in Scotland (EDPHiS) is a multi-disciplinary collaborative research project which contributes to the intelligence partnership of the Scottish Government’s Good Places, Better Health (GPBH) initiative. Its focus is on the four priority outcomes of the GPBH pilot: obesity, unintentional injury, mental health and wellbeing and asthma in children in Scotland aged 0-9.
The new website, Scotland's Environment, aims to bring available information on Scotand's environment together in one place. The site includes trends and indicators to help understand Scotland's envirionment, a library of relevant publications and a host of other resources.
The Scottish Government's Scottish Environment Statistics Online web pages include data for a range of environmental topics (e.g. climate change, air quality, noise pollution, water, waste & recycling, radioactivity, land). Tables can be created online or downloaded as Excel spreadsheets.
The Environmental Health Surveillance System for Scotland (EHS3), maintained by Health Protection Scotland, collates a variety of environmental indicators from Scottish local authorities including air quality levels, radiation, noise complaints and water quality.
Greenspace Scotland make a range of resources available including:
Scotland’s Greenspace Map. This is an innovative GIS based map which provides comprehensive information on the location, extent and type of greenspace across all of Scotland’s urban settlements (i.e. towns and cities with a population of 3,000 or more). The map was compiled from greenspace data provided by all 32 Scottish Councils.
A biennial survey of greenspace use and attitudes among Scottish adults living in urban areas. This provides information on people’s use of greenspace and perceptions about the quality of local greenspace. The data is gathered using the Scottish Opinion omnibus survey which involves conducting 1,000 telephone interviews on a weekly basis with a sample of adults aged 18+ representative of the Scottish population.
The State of Scotland's Greenspace Reports (also produced biennially) draw on both Scotland’s Greenspace Map and the Greenspace Survey to produce summary statistics on the extent and type of urban greenspace in all 32 local authority areas.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) website allows access to a range of environmental data sets.
Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics hosts a number of environment related indicators including proximity to derelict sites and landfill sites, and air quality.
The Scottish House Condition Survey collates in-depth information on a national sample of over 20,000 dwellings in Scotland. This includes details of properties below tolerable standard, in disrepair, with relevant amenities, as well as information on dampness and condensation, energy efficiency and fuel poverty. Note that the Scottish House Condition Survey will be incoporated into the Scottish Household Survey from 2012.
A November 2005 report by the Health Protection Agency for England & Wales entitled 'Health Protection in the 21st century - understanding the burden of disease, preparing for the future' includes a wealth of relevant information and data on environmental related factors including: radiation, environmental pollution, environmental inequalities, and chemical incidents. It can be downloaded from the relevant page of the Health Protection Agency website.
Levels of 'cleanliness' of different areas in Scotland can be assessed by means of data collated by Keep Scotland Beautiful's Local Environmental Audit and Management System (LEAMS). This is based on a 2% random sample of streets across the 32 council areas in Scotland.
Transport statistics are available from the Scottish Government's Scottish Transport Statistics series of publications.
Among other topics, some limited data on transport and travel, and environmental factors, are available from the Scottish Executive's High Level Summary of Statistics: Key Trends for Scotland 2006 publication. The Scotish Government also recently published population target monitoring.
Environmental data are also available within:
Edinburgh University data library
National atmospheric emissions inventory (NETCEM)