An interoperability strategy for the next generation of SEEA accounting

The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) is a set of international environmental-economic standards, adopted by the UN Statistical Commission in 2012 (SEEA Central Framework) and 2021 (SEEA Ecosystem Accounting); the latter in particular requires the integration of large and diverse data streams. These include geospatial and other data sources, which have proven challenging for some National Statistical Offices (NSOs) to implement. Although a variety of ecosystem service modelling platforms have been built over the last 15 years to meet various user demands, they often duplicate efforts, rely on data that are siloed, and rarely effectively reuse the knowledge gained from past modelling efforts.

By making the data and models that underlie SEEA interoperable, NSOs and the scientific community can advance the accessibility, speed, quality, and transparency of SEEA accounts by making it possible to rapidly integrate and share new scientific data and models. Doing so requires an understanding of the benefits of interoperability, the costs of the status quo, and concrete pathways toward community-endorsed approaches for interoperability. The ARIES Network, which powers the ARIES for SEEA Explorer web application, offers such a path toward interoperability, providing substantial benefits to NSOs and scientific and policy communities.