In recent decades, the use of environmental indicators has become ubiquitous across the public, policy, and scientific spheres. Indicators provide information to guide decisions about environmental changes and leverage political power. In line with this special issue, I engage with how indicators are information dissemination interventions. I demonstrate that the reliance of indicators as key metrics for environmental governance should be treated with caution given that indicators are derived from a process of commensuration. This paper reviews some of the assumptions made in the development of indicators, and describes their use and efficacy in environmental governance. In doing so, I argue that there needs to be more careful attention to how environmental indicators are derived and deployed in place-based settings.

在最近的几十年中，环境指标的使用已遍及公共，政策和科学领域。指标提供信息以指导有关环境变化的决策并利用政治力量。根据这个特殊问题，我将探讨指标是如何进行信息传播的。我证明，鉴于指标是从相称过程中衍生出来的，因此应谨慎对待将指标作为环境治理的关键指标的依赖。本文回顾了指标制定过程中的一些假设，并描述了它们在环境治理中的用途和功效。在这样做时，我认为需要更加谨慎地关注如何在基于场所的环境中导出和部署环境指标。