Abstract

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Since the mid-1990s, Statistics Canada has administered a number of environmental surveys designed to fill important data gaps and to improve our understanding of the links between economic actions and environmental change. Although significant experience has been gained in the collection of environmental statistics, the administration of environmental surveys continues to be challenging – from both a subject matter perspective and a methodological perspective. This paper will explore the development of the environment survey program at Statistics Canada, the framework within which the surveys exist and what data gaps the surveys fulfill. The paper will focus on Statistics Canada's experiences and challenges related to the recent development of a new environment survey on industrial water use and the methodological redesign of an existing survey on environmental protection expenditures and technology use in industry. The lessons learned serve as an input for future work related to the collection of environmental statistics.

Keywords: Environmental protection, environment surveys, methodology, environment statistics, water use.