What is ECOS Results?
ECOS Results is an interactive web tool displaying state-identified common measures. It seeks to communicate public health, environmental progress, and economic impact over time.
ECOS Results displays measures within three fundamental areas: air healthy to breathe, less and properly managed waste, and water clean and available for all uses.
This is a voluntary, state-led effort that relies on existing, routinely-collected and reported data. States can elect to report on different measures and are able to provide state-specific comments through the “Gain Additional Insights” buttons under a chart, therefore illustrating their own stories of progress to protect public health and the environment. Each state has its own story to tell and data to share; as such ECOS is not supporting this tool as a means to compare states.
Why is ECOS Results important?
States play an important role in implementing federal environmental programs. While some states have developed their own environmental dashboards, ECOS Results is ECOS’ first foray into a collaborative effort to illustrate state progress on a national scale. In addition to helping raise public awareness about issues within a particular state, ECOS Results can also be used to demonstrate ongoing or emerging public health and environmental challenges.
How was ECOS Results created?
The project began in 2016 under the leadership of ECOS Officers Martha Rudolph of the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment and John Linc Stine of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Working groups of state officials identified a small, manageable set of robust common environmental, public health, and economic measures from data already being collected and reported by state environmental agencies. Twelve states and five state associations participated in this ECOS Results effort through the subgroups, including Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials (ASTSWMO), the Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA), the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA), the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), and the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA). ECOS Measures Workgroup Participants.
The ECOS Measures Workgroup agreed on fourteen common measures in early 2017, which cover the three topical areas of the measures subgroups. ECOS Common Measures. ECOS then gathered data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states; the data was verified by the fifteen pilot states (Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) for use in the development of the web tool. ECOS worked with an infographics consultant to synthesize the data into understandable and meaningful infographics.
How is ECOS Results Funded?
ECOS Results is funded in part via a Cooperative Agreement with EPA under the auspices of the ECOS Planning Committee. The ECOSResults.org website is funded with ECOS resources. ECOS appreciates the support and collaboration of our EPA colleagues in the process.
What are the next steps for ECOS Results?
ECOS Results was launched in October 2017. This is a phased project, with more states participating at ECOS’ Spring Meeting in March 2018, and close to all remaining states participating at ECOS’ Fall Meeting in August 2018.
ECOS formed a phase 2 workgroup in November 2018 to revise and provide input on the measures. The workgroup concluded work in February 2019 with the implementation of edits to make the site and measures more understandable to viewers. ECOS will continue to update ECOSResults.org with current data on an annual basis.