Environmental risks and impacts - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 217

The monitored parameters show the trends and the rate of changes, which is a good
basis for forecasting, decision making and long-term management.
Environmental monitoring is a periodic or continuous surveillance or testing of
environmental quality, to determine the priority characteristics of a certain environ-
ment, which contribute to environmental risk. The observed or measured character-
istics should be evaluated in relation to a no-risk target. The no-risk situation can be
in compliance with statutory or site-specifically agreed requirements such as pollutant
concentration or levels in groundwater, water, soil or fauna and flora members, the
ecosystem's population density, species diversity or any other specific indicators. To
establish an efficient monitoring system, one has to draw up an inventory of and assess
all possible risks relevant to the site/area in question, prioritize them, find suitable
indicators for their characterization, finally set up an observation and testing system
for acquiring data series. Evaluating and interpreting, i.e. drawing the best possible
information from the measured data is monitoring's most important step.
Early warning indicators play a crucial role in environmental monitoring and
management, and enable environmental managers to apply efficient measures at the
earliest stage possible. Numerous technologies are available, including innovative ones
from the molecular level (DNA and other molecular methods, new physical and chem-
ical analysis methods) through the organism level (microbiological, biological and
ecological assessment tools) to spatial levels, increasing in size up to the global assess-
ment techniques (many types of remote sensing). Evaluation and interpretation tools
enable managers and engineers to obtain a true picture on our present and future
environmental status.
Even if the best monitoring and interpretation systems are available for measuring
environmental parameters, we must not forget that the comparative basis of the cur-
rent environmental situation is not properly defined. We cannot completely define the
ideal environment because we do not know the time- and space-dependence of global
ecological trends and cycles. Retrospective assessment is also limited due to lacking
and insecure long-term historical data.
Another problem is that the best possible environment for the natural ecosystem is
not automatically the best possible one for human health, and generally not the opti-
mal one for industrial and economic purposes. Today's practice of sharing the global
resources between the stakeholders of ecology, human health and the economy/industry
is determined by the levels of knowledge/understanding and the application of this
knowledge by the tools of management and politics.
A balance between conserving nature and protecting the functioning of the global
ecosystem, as well as the needs of humans and their living standards, is often under-
mined by extreme positions. This can be, for example, considering only economic
benefits without the “interests'' of the environment, or relying on emotions, aiming
at conserving a particular element of the environment and neglecting the costs and
other priorities. As Figure 8.10 shows, economic aspects, human health and social
needs should be in equilibrium with ecosystem health. The “most objective'' bal-
ance based on the quantitative characterization of the environment and ecosystem
services must be found. We have to further develop the practice of risk-based decision
making, the quantitative evaluation of environmental risks and the comparative eval-
uation of the possible risk-reduction measures mentioning only the most important
engineering tools.