Natural Features & Ecosystems

Mist brushes the top of Mt. Tammany NJ at the Water Gap.

NPS Photo

Visiting Delaware Water Gap, one feels as if time has stopped. Historic farmhouses and agricultural fields keep the landscape looking as it might have looked in the 1800s. But time has not stopped in Delaware Water Gap and forces both natural and human-made constantly change the land. Erosion and weathering continue the painstaking process of wearing away mountains and changing rock into soil. Water flowing down stream, down river, down hill and freezing and thawing in an endless cycle of winters assists in the process of shaping the landscape.

These forces are natural and the changes they cause are neither positive nor negative, but other factors are also acting on the park and threaten to damage the health of our resources. The Delaware River is considered to be a river of exceptional water quality and indeed the park works to keep it that way. But the river is not contained within the park, it is merely travelling through, and so the park alone cannot protect the river. It is through the cooperation and efforts of many people and many businesses in communities neighboring the park that the fate of the river is determined.