Indicadores ambientales y desempeño ambiental: Colombia en el índice de desempeño ambiental (EPI) (2006-2014)

The national databases are important not only for their synthetizing vision on the environmental scenarios, but also due to the identification of information gaps. On the other hand, international databases allow evaluating the countries based on common standards. Using the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), we analyzed in Colombia the databases that inform most of the parameters and gathered data; we also evaluated their availability. We found that most of the information is contained in two national repositories, with some problems related to the availability, access to temporary access, and unprocessed data. This is accompanied by the fact that some EPI indicators are not reflected in any primary database or do not have any data for analysis. Even though Colombia is strongly involved and committed to the international environmental agenda, there is still a lack of national information sources, open and reliable, that would support a monitoring program based on international indexes such as EPI.