Project Summary
The National Air and Radiation Indicators Project (NARIP) is a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) and the Florida Center for Public Management (FCPM) of Florida State University to develop a national set of environmental indicators that can be used by the states, tribes, non-governmental organizations and the private sector as well as EPA and its regions to describe trends and conditions concerning air and radiation issues affecting the United States.
To provide a structure to NARIP that is familiar to states and tribes and to facilitate the integration of NARIP with state, tribal and national environmental planning, FCPM has organized the indicator system to reflect the goals of the National Environmental Goals Project. It is important to note that the goals and milestones are proposed and are subject to change after the review period.
Of the 12 currently-proposed goals, six goal areas relating to air and radiation issues formed the basis of indicator development. The six goal areas are:
- Clean Air;
- Reducing Global Environmental and Transboundary Risk;
- Safe Homes, Schools, and Workplaces;
- Preventing Accidental Releases;
- Safe Waste Management; and
- Restoration of Contaminated Sites.
Four stakeholder working groups were established to develop environmental indicators based on the National Environmental Goals Project areas relevant to air and radiation issues. Three of the six goal areas (Preventing Accidental Releases; Safe Waste Management; and Restoration of Contaminated Sites) were combined into one working group. Working groups were composed of state and tribal, non-governmental, private industry and EPA members. Three working group meetings in September and November 1996 and January 1997 have:
- set the environmental indicators development process for air and radiation issues in international, national, state and tribal contexts;
- provided linkage to other goals and indicators processes, including the National Environmental Goals Project, the Environmental Information Acquisition Action Plan, the Government Performance and Results Act, the National Environmental Performance Partnership System, and the U.S. EPA/Region/State Memorandum of Agreement process;
- conducted analysis of available data sources capable of supporting appropriate indicators,
- identified shortcoming in available data to support indicators for important issue areas and recommended prospective indicators to support those areas, and
- recommended a set of air and radiation indicators judged to be the best presently available.
The final products of the NARIP process are an indicator manual containing 83 air and radiation indicators and a four page executive summary.