India ranks 123 in pollution control; Iceland ranks top

India ranks 123rd in 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), while Iceland leads the world in addressing pollution control and natural resource management challenges, the latest EPI index has revealed.

Of the newly industrialised nations, China and India rank 121st and 123rd respectively – reflecting the strain rapid economic growth imposes on the environment, said the report released today at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010.

However, Brazil and Russia rank 62nd and 69th, suggesting that the level of development is just one of many factors affecting placement in the rankings. The EPI is produced by a team of environmental experts at Yale University and Columbia University. This is the third edition of the EPI, which has been revisited biannually since 2006.

The EPI ranks 163 countries on their performance across 25 metrics aggregated into ten categories, including environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change.

The US is ranked 61st, with strong results on some issues, such as provision of safe drinking water and forest sustainability, and weak performance on other issues including greenhouse gas emissions and several aspects of local air pollution.