A strategy for integrated monitoring |
| |
Authors: | Bruce B Hicks Thomas G Brydges |
| |
Institution: | (1) NOAA, Air Resources Laboratory, 1325 East West Highway, 20910 Silver Spring, Maryland, USA;(2) Atmospheric Environment Service, 4905 Dufferin, M3H 5T4 Downsview, Ontario, Canada |
| |
Abstract: | Administrative machinery has been set up to regulate and control most of the emissions that are known to have severe local
consequences, such as the discharge of raw sewage into rivers and lakes and the smokestack emission of air pollutants. Now,
the nature of environmental degradation is usually different. We are faced with pollutants and effects with more subtle cause-effect
relationships, often characterized by larger geographic areas of interest and longer term potential damage; the potential
risk is now more chronic than acute. Acid rain and climate change are good examples, in that they are associated with a variety
of pollutants from a number of sources and damage to ecosystems occurs over many years. It is argued that monitoring programs
should evolve to reflect the changing nature of the environmental problems they are addressing. It is now necessary to consider
interactions among many pollutants, mixing among the various media, and potentially affecting many components of the ecosystem
in both indirect and direct ways. Here, integrated monitoring and analysis is presented as a unifying strategy to bring together
different measurement methodologies in different disciplines, addressing environmental questions of complexity beyond the
scope of many existing activites that have a classical narrower focus. The underlying concept is of nested networks, each
tier being composed of sites selected for specific purposes but arranged to maximize the number of common sites where more
multidisciplinary questions can be addressed. |
| |
Keywords: | Monitoring Integration Multidisciplinary studies Acid deposition Aquatic effects Forest damage |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|