Basic Information
What is the eROE?
The Electronic Report on the Environment (eROE) site releases reports and updates in cycles of three to four years to inform the public about where progress is being made and where challenges remain in the areas of health and environmental protection. EPA also uses this information to plan its projects and priorities in the future (see the EPA Strategic Plan).
Latest Edition - The eROE is comprised of two products:
- EPA's Report on the Environment (ROE): the ROE presents indicators that help answer questions of importance to EPA’s mission to protect the environment and human health. It also discusses important limitations of these indicators and gaps when adequate indicators are not available. The ROE is available as a printable PDF at http://www.epa.gov/ncea/sciencereport and is also available as an on-line database at http://www.epa.gov/ncea/roe.
- EPA's Report on the Environment: Highlights of National Trends: the ROE Highlights Document is a short publication that describes national environmental and health trends for the general public. Its content is drawn from the ROE. It is available as a printable PDF at http://oaspub.epa.gov/hd/downloads and is available as an on-line Web site at http://oaspub.epa.gov/hd/home.
Both reports are presented with five chapters specifically addressing: Air, Water, Land, Human Exposure and Health, and Ecological Condition. For each of the five chapters, EPA identified a set of priority questions that are relevant to the Agency’s mission to protect the environment and human health and are of national interest.
Evolution of the ROE
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 need, 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 the Draft Report on the Environment Technical Document (EPA/600/R-07/045F) , and the publicly oriented companion document, Draft Report on the Environment -, both released in 2003.
Since 2003, EPA has revised, updated, and refined the 2003 ROE in response to scientific developments, as well as feedback from EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and stakeholders. As a result, the latest edition -featured thoughout this site - provide both an update and an improvement over the 2003 draft editions.
EPA anticipates that the indicators comprising the main content of the ROE will be updated with new data points annually on the web if the data are available. Depending on what is available, new indicators may also be added to the ROE dynamic website. Full paper versions of the ROE and ROE-D are anticipated to be released every four years, with the next release scheduled for 2012.
Frequent Questions
For other questions about ROE, review our list of frequently asked questions