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About EPA's Report on the Environment
Background
To accomplish its mission to protect human health and the environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must pay close attention to trends in the condition of the nation’s air, water, and land, as well as related trends in human health and ecological systems. To meet this needs, EPA embarked on a bold initiative in 2001 to assemble, for the first time, the most reliable available indicators of national environmental and health conditions and trends that are important to EPA’s mission. EPA initially presented these indicators in its Draft Report on the Environment (ROE) Technical Document (TD), and its publicly oriented companion document the Draft Report on the Environment (ROE), both released in 2003. Since then, EPA has revised, updated, and refined the ROE in response to scientific developments, as well as feedback from EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and stakeholders. As a result, the EPA's 2008 Report on the Environment provides both an update and an improvement over the 2003 draft editions.
Report Breakout
The goal of the ROE 08 is to inform the public about trends in air, water, land, human health and the environment that are of particular importance to EPA’s mission.
The ROE is comprised of two products:
- EPA's 2008 Report on the Environment: The ROE presents indicators that help to answer questions of importance to EPA’s mission. It also discuss important limitations of these indicators and gaps where adequate indicators are not available. The ROE provides the scientific foundation for the more general Highlights of National Trends document.
- EPA's 2008 Report on the Environment: Highlights of National Trends: The ROE: Highlights of National Trends document (HD) is a short publication that describes national environmental trends for the general public. Its content is drawn from the ROE.
Report Format
Both reports (the ROE and the ROE HD) are presented with five chapters specifically addressing: Air, Water, Land, Human Health, and Ecological Condition. For each of the five chapters, EPA identified a set of priorities that are relevant to the Agency’s mission to protect the environment and human health, and are of national interest.