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This chapter examines three research methods applicable to the environmental problems facing households and communities: broad spectrum household surveys, participatory rapid assessment, and contingent valuation. It includes the application of each of these techniques on a small scale in Jakarta. In Jakarta, two hundred randomly-selected households were surveyed in two neighbourhoods, only one of which had benefited from slum upgrading. Coherent data sets, capable of being analysed from a variety of perspectives, are beginning to displace pre-structured tabulations of statistics. Over time, this should greatly facilitate environmental analysis, for which inter-sectoral relationships are of central importance. Most surveys of household and neighbourhood-level environmental problems have focused on public health issues. Sample surveys eventually came to play an important role in sanitary reform and the …