Environmental monitoring

Environmental monitoring describes the processes and activities that need to take place to characterize and monitor the quality of the environment. Environmental monitoring is used in the preparation of environmental impact assessments, as well as in many circumstances in which human activities carry a risk of harmful effects on the natural environment. All monitoring strategies and programs have reasons and justifications which are often designed to establish the current status of an environment or to establish trends in environmental parameters. In all cases, the results of monitoring will be reviewed, analyzed statistically, and published. The design of a monitoring program must therefore have regard to the final use of the data before monitoring starts. Environmental monitoring includes monitoring of air quality, soils and water quality. Air pollutants are atmospheric substances—both naturally occurring and anthropogenic—which may potentially have a negative impact on the environment and organism health. With the evolution of new chemicals and industrial processes has come the introduction or elevation of pollutants in the atmosphere, as well as environmental research and regulations, increasing the demand for air quality monitoring. Air quality monitoring is challenging to enact as it requires the effective integration of multiple environmental data sources, which often originate from different environmental networks and institutions. These challenges require specialized observation equipment and tools to establish air pollutant concentrations, including sensor networks, geographic information system (GIS) models, and the Sensor Observation Service (SOS), a web service for querying real-time sensor data. Air dispersion models that combine topographic, emissions, and meteorological data to predict air pollutant concentrations are often helpful in interpreting air monitoring data. Additionally, consideration of anemometer data in the area between sources and the monitor often provides insights on the source of the air contaminants recorded by an air pollution monitor.