This page explains where the data we publish comes from, how we process it, how often we review it and what we do when we get something wrong. It is the backing for every figure, table and map on this site.
What we publish
Desarrollo Sustentable publishes country-by-country natural resource profiles and explanatory articles on sustainable development, energy, biodiversity and climate change. The aim is not to produce original research but to gather, verify and present in a simple, visual form data that already exists in the public databases of the major international bodies, and that is scattered or hard to read for a non-specialist.
Table de contenidos
Where the data comes from
All the numerical indicators on this site come from public primary sources. These are the ones we use systematically:
- World Bank — World Development Indicators. This is our main source. From its API we take total and forest area, forest percentage, agricultural and arable land, protected land and marine areas, renewable freshwater resources per capita, capture fisheries, threatened species (mammals, birds, fish, plants), the share of electricity from renewable sources and natural resource rents as a percentage of GDP (oil, natural gas, coal, minerals and forests).
- FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). Country profiles and the state of forests, fisheries and food security.
- United States Geological Survey (USGS) — Mineral Commodity Summaries. Mineral production and reserves by country.
- United Nations. Progress reports on the Sustainable Development Goals.
- OECD. Environmental and climate change policy.
When a figure comes from another source — a national ministry, a statistics institute, a scientific body or a news outlet — it is linked directly at the point in the text where it appears, so that anyone can check it.
How we process the figures
- We always use the most recent year available for each indicator and country. Because these bodies do not publish every country at the same pace, the reference year can vary between indicators within the same profile; that is why we state it next to the figure.
- We do not interpolate or estimate. If a country has no data for an indicator, the cell is left empty rather than filled with an approximate value.
- Values are rounded to make them easier to read, never in a way that changes the magnitude of the figure.
- Extraction from the APIs is automated, which eliminates manual transcription error and means the query can be repeated to obtain the same result.
How often we update
- We review the indicators in each country profile at least once a year, and again whenever the primary source publishes a new edition of its data.
- We periodically review external links and replace those that have stopped working or have changed address.
- The date of the last review appears in the header of each article, alongside the publication date: «Published on… · Reviewed on…». That date reflects the last real change to the content; we do not update it automatically or cosmetically to give an appearance of freshness.
How we correct mistakes
- If we find a factual error, we correct it as soon as we have verified it, and the article’s review date is updated.
- If the error affected a figure or a significant conclusion, we say so in the article itself rather than correcting it silently.
- Any reader can report an error by writing to juanmonto5@hotmail.com or through the contact page. We treat error reports as a priority.
- WordPress keeps the full revision history of every article, so it is always possible to reconstruct what a text said on a given date.
Use of artificial intelligence
We use artificial intelligence tools to support the production of this site: to extract and organize data from the databases cited above, to generate tables and visualizations from it, to check style and spelling, to detect broken links or out-of-date figures, and to draft sections that are then edited.
Two lines we do not cross:
- Figures never come from a language model. They are taken from the primary sources listed on this page and checked against them. A model may format them; it cannot originate them.
- Editorial responsibility is human. Juan David Montoya decides what is published, approves the result and answers for it. No content is published without that decision.
Editorial independence and advertising
The site is funded by Google AdSense advertising. The ads are selected and served automatically by Google: we do not choose them, we do not know in advance which advertiser will appear on any given page, and no advertiser has any say in what we write or any advance access to the content. We do not publish sponsored articles or paid links. If we ever did, it would be identified as such in the article itself.
Who is accountable
Desarrollo Sustentable is a one-person project. All the content is written and reviewed by Juan David Montoya, an economist from the Universidad de Antioquia, covering the environment and sustainable development since 2013, from Medellín, Colombia. There is no editorial board and there are no external reviewers: when you read an attribution on this site, an identifiable, contactable person stands behind it.
This page was last reviewed on July 25, 2026.