We attempted to make some clarification of how indicators fit into monitoring programs. Monitoring can be for (a) prediction, and (b)'unnatural' changes in ecosystems. Monitoring includes: field sampling, data analysis, interpretation (i.e. we must select indicators that are interpretable) and action (i.e. we want to determine how to act based on the information gathered).
For the State of the Environment Report purposes, we focussed on the following:
(1) indicators MUST reflect the SOE.
(2) we did not address the ultimate goal of how we decide on which actions to pursue, based on indicators.
(3) indicators MUST be understood by policy makers. (4) indicators should be used by scientists to compile the SOE report, but should still be interpretable by decision makers. (5) indicators will not be universal, i.e. we must examine a range of indicators. In answer to the question of what is a SOE indicator?, we defined it as a measurement of the welfare of the system under study (eg. for forest systems, measures of productivity, nutrient status of soils, diversity of forested areas compared with undisturbed sites).