Environmental monitoring is a set of observations that monitor the state of the environment, as well as its assessment and forecast of changes occurring in it under the influence of both anthropogenic and natural factors.
As a rule, such studies are always carried out in any territory, but the services involved in them belong to different departments, and their actions are not coordinated in any of the aspects. For this reason, environmental monitoring is faced with a priority task: to determine the ecological and economic region. The next step is to select information that is specific to the state of the environment. You also need to make sure that the data received is enough to draw the right conclusions.
Types of environmental monitoring
Since many tasks of various levels are solved during observation, at one time it was proposed to distinguish three of its directions:
- sanitary-hygienic;
- natural and economic;
- global.
However, in practice, it turned out that this approach does not clearly definezoning and organizational parameters. It is also impossible to accurately separate the functions of environmental observation subtypes.
Environmental monitoring: subsystems
The main subtypes of environmental surveillance are:
- Climate monitoring. This service deals with the control and forecast of climate fluctuations. It covers the ice sheet, atmosphere, ocean and other parts of the biosphere that influence its formation.
- Geophysical monitoring. This service analyzes data on air pollution and data from hydrologists, meteorologists.
- Biological monitoring. This service monitors how pollution affects all living organisms.
- Monitoring the he alth of residents of a particular territory. This service monitors, analyzes and predicts the he alth status of the population.
So, in general terms, environmental monitoring is as follows. The environment (or one of its objects) is selected, its parameters are measured, information is collected and then transmitted. After that, the data is processed, their general characteristics are given at the current stage, and forecasts are made for the future.
Environment monitoring levels
Environmental monitoring is a multilevel system. In ascending order, it looks like this:
- Detail level. Monitoring is implemented in small areas.
- Local level. This system is formed when parts of detailed monitoring are combined into one network. That is, heis already underway in a district or a large city.
- Regional level. It covers the territory of several regions within the same region or territory.
- National level. It is formed by regional monitoring systems united within one country.
- Global level. It combines the monitoring systems of several nations. Its task is to monitor the state of the environment around the world, to predict its changes, which occur, among other things, as a result of the impact of the anthropogenic factor on the biosphere.
Surveillance program
Environmental monitoring is scientifically based and has its own program. It specifies the goals of its implementation, specific steps and methods of implementation. The main points that make up the environmental monitoring program are as follows:
- List of objects that are controlled. The exact indication of their territory.
- List of indicators of ongoing control and acceptable limits for their changes.
And finally, the time frame, i.e. how often samples should be taken and when data should be provided.
