South Africa has ranked 72^nd in the global Environmental Performance Index (EPI).

The EPI ranks how well countries perform on high-priority environmental issues in two areas: protection of human health from environmental harm and protection of ecosystems. Within these two areas, countries are scored on their performance in nine issue areas comprised of 20 indicators.

Indicators measure how close countries are to meeting internationally established targets or, in the absence of agreed targets, how they compare to the range of observed countries. Each country is given a total score out of 100 as well as a score out of 100 in each performance area.

The index is a joint project between the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, in collaboration with the Samuel Family Foundation and the World Economic Forum and is released biennially.

The latest findings show that, overall, improvements have been made in many of the categories of the environmental health objective, including access to drinking water, child mortality, and access to sanitation. Declines and overall low scores are found in the areas of air quality, wastewater treatment and fisheries. Trends in most areas suggest improvement, however, some primary issues such as air quality and fisheries show a decline over the last decade.

South Africa received an overall score of 53.51. The country did particularly well in the areas of forests and air quality; however, it performed poorly in the fisheries and water and sanitation categories.

Switzerland ranked first overall with a score of 87.67 while Somalia ranked last (178th) with a score of 15.47.