title: Environmental Assessment for Sustainability and Resiliency for Ecological and Human Health.
abstract: Considerable attention has been devoted to environmental assessment and monitoring, primarily by physical and biological scientists, and more recently by social scientists. However, population growth and global change have resulted in an imperative to assess the resiliency of the environment to adapt to large scale changes and to continue to produce goods and services for future generations (sustainability). Changing land use needs or expectations may require the remediation and restoration of degraded or contaminated land. This paper provides an overview of monitoring types, and discusses how indicators for the different monitoring types can be developed to address questions of ecological health, human health, and whether restoration and remediation are effective. We suggest that along with more traditional types of monitoring, agencies should consider recovery indicators or metrics, as well as resiliency metrics. We suggest that one goal of assessment should be to determine if management, remediation, restoration, and mitigation reduce recovery time, thus reducing community vulnerability and enhancing resiliency to environmental stressors and disasters.
authors.affiliation: Division of Life Sciences, Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, New Jersey, 08854, USA; Consortium for Risk Evaluation and Stakeholder Participation, Vanderbilt University (Nashville Tennessee) and Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA.
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burger
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA; Environmental and Community Medicine, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey, 08854, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gochfeld
authors.affiliation: Environmental and Community Medicine, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey, 08854, USA; Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Clarke
authors.affiliation: Consortium for Risk Evaluation and Stakeholder Participation, Vanderbilt University (Nashville Tennessee) and Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jeitner
authors.affiliation: Consortium for Risk Evaluation and Stakeholder Participation, Vanderbilt University (Nashville Tennessee) and Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA.
authors.forename: Taryn
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pittfield
keywords: Assessment; Ecological health; Human health; Indicators; Monitoring; Recovery; Resiliency