India's First Ever National Environment Survey to begin in 2019

India's First Ever National Environment Survey to begin in 2019: Details, Features, Significance, Highlights

India’s first ever National Environment Survey (NES) will begin in January 2019 to map environment data of 55 districts across 24 states and 3 Union Territories.

The National Environment Survey (NES) will rank all districts on their environmental performance and document their best green practices based on various environmental parameters. The earliest first set of complete green data from this survey will be available in 2020.

The first NES survey will be carried out by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) through Environmental Information System (ENVIS) and its hubs and resource partners across India.

The NES survey will be done through a grid-based approach, using grids measuring 9×9 km to collect comprehensive data on various environmental parameters.

These NES survey's parameters will include air, water, soil quality; solid, hazardous and e-waste; emission inventory; forest & wildlife; flora & fauna; wetlands, lakes, rivers and other water bodies.

The NES survey will also assess carbon sequestration potential of all the districts nationwide.

The green data from this survey will provide an important tool in hands of policy-makers for decision making at all levels- district, state and national.

The NES survey will fully map and create emission inventory, provide a valuation of ecosystem services and collate research in the field of environment.

Initially, the NES survey will focus on 55 districts and later will be scaled up to all districts India.

The skilled manpower required for the survey will be provided from persons skilled and trained under MoEFCC’s Green Skill Development Programme.