The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has a fundamental mission to protect the natural environment and prevent impacts to the environment and human health. DEP works to control discharges to air, water, and land, and to remediate the pollution of these media. Some particular focus areas have included the management of wastes and the regulation of waste discharge pipes and smokestacks. A comprehensive approach is most effective to protect the environment and human health. Today, the DEP strives to preserve environmental resources such as air, water, land, and healthy ecosystems to ensure that future generations of people, wild plants, and animals can thrive.

Since 1998, the DEP has been updating “State of the Environment” reports. These reports provide information on trends and conditions that DEP uses to assess our state’s environmental health. Currently, “New Jersey’s Environmental Trends” consist of 39 chapters that cover air, climate, energy, open space and land use, pollution prevention and solid waste, water, and plants and wildlife. Each chapter describes a specific area in which the DEP has been working to improve conditions and presents environmental measurements for gauging the status of the environment in New Jersey.

DEP uses these report chapters to evaluate the effectiveness of its current efforts and to help steer future efforts. Indicators of environmental quality and health are useful for monitoring and reporting on environmental conditions. Environmental indicators are measurable conditions that DEP uses to assess the state of the environment and to gauge progress towards specific goals. Indicators are necessary because it can be difficult to measure all of the components that influence an environmental factor, such as water or air quality. The choice of measures is also limited to those environmental parameters for which there are accurate long-term data and therefore the chapters are updated on a rolling basis.

DEP tracks many of these measures on an ongoing basis. Where there are goals or end points associated with a measure these are also included. Some goals are expressed 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. For example, in the chapter “Wildlife Populations: Bald Eagle,” the recently increasing population of these birds is a positive development, despite the lack of a formal goal of a specific number of breeding pairs.

Some trends are encouraging and show clear evidence of progress. Others reflect situations that appear to be worsening and identify challenges that lie ahead.

Individual chapters of the report are available as discrete PDF documents using the index in the adjacent table. A reference matrix is available to help explain which chapters of the report are relevant for different topic areas.

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 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. A first look at the marked chapters should help most readers focus on their areas of interest.

Principal Authors: Kirk Raper, M.S. and Sandra Goodrow, Ph.D.

For comments or questions regarding these reports, please contact Sandra Goodrow.

Chapter Title	Water	Air	Land Use	Regional/Global Issues	Public Health	Pollution Prevention/Solid Waste	Wildlife
Air Toxics		X		X	X	X
Atmospheric Deposition	X	X		X			X
Beach Monitoring	X		X		X
Beach Replenishment	X		X		X
Climate Change in NJ		X	X	X	X
Dissolved Oxygen	X		X				X
Drinking Water Quality	X				X
Endangered Plants			X	X
Energy Use & Renewable Energy Source		X	X
Estuarine Algal Conditions	X
Fish: Concentrations of Key Contaminants	X				X		X
Freshwater Ecological Health	X		X		X		X
Greenhouse Gas Emissions		X	X	X
Groundwater	X		X		X
Land Use and Land Cover		X	X				X
Marine Water Pollution	X				X
Mercury Emissions		X		X	X	X
NOx and VOCs		X	X		X
Open Space Preservation			X				X
Ozone		X		X	X
Pesticides	X				X	X
PM2.5		X		X	X
Site Remediation	X		X		X	X
Solid Waste and Recycling	X		X			X
State Parks and Forests			X				X
Surface Water Quality	X		X		X		X
Urban and Community Forests			X				X
Vehicle Miles Traveled		X	X	X
Water Supply	X				X
Wildlife Populations: Bald Eagle							X
Wildlife Populations: Canada Goose							X
Wildlife Populations: Colonial-nesting Waterbirds							X
Wildlife Populations: Horseshoe Crab							X
Wildlife Populations: Marine Fisheries							X
Wildlife Populations: Osprey							X
Wildlife Populations: Peregrine Falcon							X
Wildlife Populations: Red Knot			X				X
Wildlife Populations: White-tailed Deer					X		X
Wildlife Populations: Wood Duck							X