To navigate the State of the Environment Report on the Internet is easy! Use the menus provided to link to specific information areas. The easiest way to navigate is to select and click on your area of interest from the entry page. Once you have selected your area of interest, a new page will open. This will contain new menus and options. Continue selecting menu options until you have found the information you are looking for.

Please note that on the CD version of the report, some links may only work if you are connected to the Internet

Of cource, the easiest way to find information on this site is to use the search facility provided on the top menu bar. The search facility is not operational on the CD version of the report.

A detailed description on how to navigate in this site is provided below:

Entry screen

When you enter the site the screen looks similar to the screen shown here. Please note that your screen my not look exactly the same. On the top of the screen is a menu bar showing links to information about the project, the report and to background information on South Africa.

On the left hand side of the screen are links to the city and global state of the environment reports. On the right hand side of the screen you will find boxes with links to useful information related to the state of the environment report. These are grouped into Action, Indicators, and Site Resources.In the center part of the screen you will find the links to the different sections of the state of the environment report. These are group as follows: The first section on the top left deals with the physical environment. The second section on the top row deals with the human environment. Clicking on any of these options will link directly to the relevant chapter in the state of the environment. On the second row you can link to the section in the report that gives an overview of causes of environmental change. On the third row we provide a link to the section in the report that provides an overview of how our society is responding to environmental change. You may also link to a shortened overview document on the state of the environment available in several language in Acrobat format.

When you move your cursor over any of the options in the top menu bar, a pop up screen appears providing more information on the link.

Chapter section

Once you have selected one of the chapters/sections in the state of the environment report, you will be presented with a screen similar to the screen shown here. There are four navigation areas on the page. There are two navigation bars and left and right arrows at the top of the page. This is followed by a menu box, and a navigation bar with up and left arrows at the bottom of the page.

Top menu bar and left and right arrows:
Use the topmost menu bar to link to different chapters in the report. Use the second navigation bar to link to different sets of information (introduction, driving forces, state etc) on the chapter or section of the report you are browsing. The sub sections listed in the second navigation bar are the same for each chapter of the report. Once again, when you move your cursor over any of the options on the top menu bar you will be presented with more information on the specific option. Options include a link to a list of indicators used in the chapter or section. This is handy if you are only interested in the data (graphs, figures and tables) contained in the specific chapter or section of the report. There is also a link to other information available on the Internet dealing with the specific topic that you are browsing at the time.

Use the left and right arrows to move sequentially through the content of the chapter. Useful if you want to read or print the whole chapter or section. This is the safest option if you do not want to get lost or be side tracked by all the other links provided on any of the pages, or if you want to print a chapter in the report.

Menu box:
The menu box provides links to the different sub sections of a section (such as driving forces, state, response) of the report. In the example above, policy and constitutional initiatives and international treaties, legislation and guidelines are the two subsections identified under the response section of Marine and Coastal chapter of the report. Normally the sub sections in the menu box will be on the same internet page. Please note that the color of a link provides an indication if the link has been visited or not. If the color of the link is blue, the link has not been activated yet.

Bottom menu bar and arrows:
The bottom menu bar provides links to similar information that you are browsing that are available in other state of the environment reports. This menu bar may not yet be fully functional as it is dependant on the availability of other state of the environment reports on the Internet. Also, if you have the CD version of this report, these options will not work unless you are connected to the Internet.

The top arrow presented at the bottom of the page lets you jump to the top of the current Web page. The right arrow allows you to move to the next section of the report.

Text section

Two types of links are provided in the text sections of documents. There are the normal hyperlinks which are presented as underlined text in a blue color. Clicking on hyperlinked text normally takes you to another Web page.

In this report, many scientific terms are used. We have decided to include a glossary where these terms are explained. To distinguish between normal hyperlinked text and links that will take the user to the glossary, "glossary links" have a yellow coloured background.

Back and forward navigation

On some pages, no back or next navigation tools are provided. In these cases, use the back or forward buttons provided on the toolbar of the web browser you are using. Examples of the toolbars for Microsoft Internet explorer and Netscape Navigator are provided below.