GeoDevelopment Observatory of Bolivia / Indicators
SDG 15: Life on land
The Life on land index of the Municipal Atlas of the SDGs for 339 municipalities, built from the share of protected area and biodiversity loss from deforestation.
The SDG 15 (Life on land) index of the Municipal Atlas of the Sustainable Development Goals in Bolivia 2020 (SDSN Bolivia) and the two indicators behind it, for all 339 municipalities: the legally declared protected area as a share of the municipal area (2019, computed by Conservación Internacional Bolivia) and a biodiversity loss index due to deforestation that weights deforested habitat by the number of species living there (average of 2016–2018, stored at 2017). Each indicator is rescaled linearly to 0–100 between a worst and a best value (higher is always better, values beyond the bounds capped), and the index, on a 0–100 scale where 100 means the targets are met, is the simple mean of the two scores; it is stored at 2019, the latest of its indicators’ years. With only two components the index bunches at a few values: 147 municipalities have no protected area and no measured biodiversity loss, which gives a score of 0 and one of 100 and an index of exactly 50, while 4 municipalities reach 100 and 2 score 0. The dataset also holds the Atlas population for 2020 and the 2012 urbanization rate as context; they are not inputs of the index.
Variables of sdg15
index_sdg15: Life on land index (0-100). SDG 15 (Life on land) index of the Municipal Atlas of the SDGs in Bolivia 2020, on a 0-100 scale where 100 means the goal's targets are met (best value) and 0 the worst situation. Following the global SDG Index method (Lafortune et al., 2018), each of its 2 indicators is rescaled linearly to 0-100 between a worst value (generally the 2.5th-percentile tail of the municipal distribution) and a best value (the SDG target where one exists, otherwise the average of the five best municipalities, or expert judgement), with the direction set so that higher is always better and values beyond the bounds capped at 0 or 100; the index is the simple (equal-weight) mean of the available rescaled indicators. Components: Protected areas (% of area); Biodiversity loss from deforestation. The components refer to different years; the observatory stores the index at 2019, the latest reference year among them.sdg15_1_pa: Protected areas (% of area). Legally declared protected area (national, departmental and municipal) as a percentage of the municipality's area, 2019, computed by Conservación Internacional Bolivia for the Atlas. 200 municipalities have 0; two slightly exceed 100 in the source data. In the SDG 15 index it is normalised linearly between 0 (worst; 2.5th-percentile tail) and 50 (best; global SDG Index; 50% or more scores 100), values beyond the bounds capped.sdg15_5_blr: Biodiversity loss from deforestation. Biodiversity loss index due to deforestation, average of 2016-2018: a species disturbance index (Andersen & Ledezma, 2019, with Conservación Internacional Bolivia) that weights deforested habitat by the number of species present there, all species weighted equally. Stored at 2017, the period midpoint. In the SDG 15 index it is normalised linearly between 1.117 (worst; 2.5th-percentile tail) and 0 (best; average of the top 5), values beyond the bounds capped.population_2020: Population (persons). Estimated municipal population in 2020 (persons), as printed in the Atlas municipal profiles ("Población estimada, 2020"). The Atlas does not name the source; the 339 values sum to 11,633,371, exactly INE's 2020 national population projection (Revisión 2020 series), so they are presumably INE's municipal projections. Not an input of any goal index. Differs from the gridded WorldPop-based pop dataset.urbano_2012: Urbanization rate (%). Share of the municipal population living in urban areas in 2012 (%), as printed in the Atlas municipal profiles ("Tasa de urbanización, 2012"), from the 2012 Population and Housing Census (INE). INE counts as urban the localities with 2,000 or more inhabitants, which is why 175 municipalities have a rate of 0. Not an input of any goal index (the Atlas treats 15 almost fully urban municipalities as having no applicable farm indicators for SDG 2; 11 of them are 95% or more urban by this rate, while Sucre, Tiquipaya and Potosí are 91–92% and Yunguyo de Litoral 0%).
Sources
- Andersen, L. E., Canelas, S., Gonzales, A., & Peñaranda, L. (2020). Atlas municipal de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible en Bolivia 2020. La Paz: Universidad Privada Boliviana, SDSN Bolivia. https://unsdsn.org/resources/municipal-atlas-of-the-sdgs-in-bolivia-2020
- Mendez, C., Gonzales, E., Leoni, P., Andersen, L., & Peralta, H. (2026). DS4Bolivia: A Data Science Repository to Study GeoSpatial Development in Bolivia [Data set]. GitHub. https://github.com/quarcs-lab/ds4bolivia