ENVIRONMENTAL
TRENDS
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is charged
with protecting the natural environment and those aspects of human
health directly related to environmental factors. Historically this
has meant controlling discharges to air, water and land, and working
to both minimize and remedy the pollution of these media. Regulation
of releases to the environment from point sources like waste discharge
pipes and smokestacks, and the management of wastes themselves, have
been particular focus areas. It has become increasingly clear that
protection of the environment and human health requires a more comprehensive
approach. Today, the DEP strives to protect and manage uses of land
and other resources to ensure that not only future generations of
people can thrive but also wild plants, animals and their critical
habitats. The DEP continues its efforts to preserve environmental
resources including air, water, land and healthy ecosystems.
Periodic assessments of environmental conditions
can provide insight into the effectiveness of the DEP’s current efforts
and offer guidance for future efforts. In monitoring and reporting
on environmental conditions, it is useful to focus on measures, or
indicators, of environmental health. Environmental indicators are
quantitative measures of conditions and trends that are used to assess
the state of the environment and natural resources and, where possible,
to gauge progress towards specific goals. Indicators are necessary
because the condition of an environmental factor, such as water or
air quality, is often made up of many different components and it
can be difficult or impossible to directly measure them all. The choice
of measures is also limited to those environmental parameters for
which there are accurate and appropriate data, preferably long-term
data that can clarify and illustrate any trends that may exist.
Since 1998, the DEP has been publishing
periodic “State of The Environment” reports that provide general information
on trends and conditions for a variety of environmental factors that,
together, comprise an overall assessment of our state’s environmental
health. In this year’s report, “New Jersey’s Environment Trends”,
forty-eight chapters are presented. Each chapter describes a specific
area in which the DEP has been working to improve conditions and presents
a specific environmental measure or category of measurements meaningful
in gauging the current status of the environment in New Jersey. This
report was released in early 2006. Some chapters have been updated,
as indicated.
Some of these measures have been discussed
in earlier DEP reports and the DEP believes it is important to continue
tracking them. Others are new. Reasonably good data exist for each
of these measures. Where goals or end points are associated with a
measure, these are presented. Some goals are expressed formally in
laws or rules. For example, a clear-cut goal noted in the chapter
“Ozone” is compliance with the federal ozone standard. Other measures
can be compared with assumed or implied goals, such as a stable or
increasing population of a wildlife species like the bald eagle. For
example, in the chapter “Wildlife Populations: Bald Eagle,” the recently
increasing population of these birds can be considered a positive
development, despite the lack of a formal goal of a specific number
of breeding pairs of these birds.
When compared with explicit or implicit
goals, some trends are encouraging and show clear evidence of progress.
Others reflect situations that appear to be worsening and challenges
that lie ahead. Many trends reflect both current and past conditions
and are subject to changes in the future due to factors that are,
in some cases, poorly understood and beyond the direct control of
the DEP.
There are a variety of ways that these chapters
could be organized. No single framework suffices because environmental
systems are interrelated, overlapping, and dynamic. For example, water
quality is affected not only by discharges from point sources but
by atmospheric deposition of pollutants from local, regional and national
sources. Water quality is also affected by land use and, in some cases,
by factors that affect water quantity, which in turn may be affected
by global climate changes, which are in turn affected by human activity
in a variety of ways, and so on.
You may download or review individual chapters
of the report as discreet PDF documents using the index of chapters
provided in the adjacent table. In addition, a reference matrix
is provided to help explain the relationship between different topic
areas in order to view all pertinent chapters of the report.
In the matrix, the chapters are listed alphabetically
by title alongside one or more major focus categories. The major categories
in the matrix are air, water, land use, regional & global issues,
public health, pollution prevention & solid waste, and wildlife.
This matrix can help a reader to find those chapters that relate to
a particular interest or subject area. Chapters that pertain to a
particular category will have an “X” in the column corresponding to
that category or categories. For example, chapters on air toxics,
atmospheric deposition (two chapters), climate change, greenhouse
gas emissions, mercury emissions, NOx and VOCs, ozone, PM2.5, pollution
prevention, radon, site remediation, solid waste and recycling, and
vehicle miles traveled are marked as being especially relevant to
the major category of “air”. Only the most obvious relationships are
identified in the matrix. Other chapters may also be relevant to some
degree because many environmental factors are interrelated. However,
a first look at the marked chapters should help most readers focus
on the specifics of their areas of interest.
View Reference
Matrix
Principal Author: Mike Aucott, Research
Scientist
For comments or questions regarding
this report, please contact Mike
Aucott.
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