Knowledge Bank

The urban environment in Ohio has changed dramatically over the last thirty years, with areas of improvement and areas of degradation. This paper seeks to inventory the state of Ohio's environment in terms of a set of key environmental indicators: conversion of open spaces, changes in farmland acreage, loss of wildlife habitat, number of endangered plant species, brownfields, air pollutants, and lake quality. We attempt to accomplish two broad objectives in this paper. First, we look at the geographic pattern of these environmental quality indicators, paying particular attention to the major metropolitan areas. Second, we examine how these aspects of environmental quality have changed over the past two or three decades, noting areas of progress and of deterioration. Overall we find that air quality in Ohio has clearly improved, although Ohio lags behind other states. The expansion of urbanization has resulted in environmental degradation especially in regard to declining wetland acreage, farmland, and wildlife habitat. Water quality and parkland acreage show no clear change in either direction. We find throughout a need for more comprehensive data on these environmental indicators, so that policy makers can understand what needs to be accomplished.