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, DSRT
Co-Author: Adriana Caldarelli, Research Scientist, DSRT
For comments or questions
regarding this report, please contact Mike Aucott.
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