Review of the System of Environmental Monitoring in the Russian Federation and Former Soviet Union and Related Environmental Policy Issues. Thesis for MSc Degree, MCMXCVII. Vladislav Larin
or reference books which were classified or had a stamp «for official use only» («dlia slugebnogo pol’zovaniya» – in Russian pronunciation).
The necessity of research work devoted to the analysis of the system of collection of environmental information and assessment of the degree of reliability of this data in the republics of the former USSR was clear several years ago – in the period of so called «ecological glasnost’». It was a time, when demand for publications on the state of the environment was great, but reliable information about on it was extremely rare. There were even serious scientists and scientific journalists, who wrote about environmental problems and were enforced to use superficial information, with considerable share of emotions. Censorship did not allow the use of occasionally found reference books of GosComGidromet or GosComStat for open publications. Therefore, serious research books were written only with the help of newspaper’s publications, because newspapers had more freedom than official issues.
At present, almost all materials of State environmental organisations are available for researchers. Political censorship disappeared, but new «democratic» bureaucracy is not willing to open accumulated information. Political censorship was substituted by commercial censorship, preventing independent scientists and investigators to use primary data. In the present dissertation system for collection of environmental data and methods of its implementation into the environmental policy in the former USSR and NIS countries was studied.
The objectives of the present study are as follows:
– To study the sophisticated system of environmental monitoring for the territory of the former Soviet Union and the Russian Federation as an example of Newly Independent State;
– To study the degree of reliability of sources of environmental information from different official and non-official organisations;
– To review place the and role of main environmental organisations in the system for collection of environmental information and the place and role of new participants in this process;
– To review the international system of environmental indicators and compare the systems of State of Environmental Reporting in the different NIS countries;
– To study the laws on environmental policy and briefly to review the ways of implementation of environmental information into the process of adoption and realisation of environmental policy.
The following methods of research has been used in this dissertation:
– review of environmental data collection from main governmental organisations involved in the system of environmental monitoring in the former USSR and in the Russian Federation at present;
– review of environmental data collection from non-governmental organisations in the Russian Federation and NIS countries;
– review of scientific articles, reference books, official documents, legislation and other related literature;
– personal communication with experts from governmental and non-governmental organisations (see Acknowledgement for details);
– analysis of the system of implementation of environmental data into the process of environmental policy.
Information and data used in this dissertation were drawn from publications and official documents found at:
– Library of the Moscow Ecopresscenter (Moscow, Russia);
– Library of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University (Budapest, Hungary);
– Collection of issues of Department of Air Pollution of Main Voeykov Geophysical Observatory (St.-Petersburg, Russia);
– Collection of issues of Department of Environmental Data State’s Committee for Statistics of the Russian Federation and Department of Environmental Data Committee for Statistics of the NIS countries (Moscow, Russia);
– Collection of issues of Department of Air Pollution of Federal Service of Russia for the Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Moscow, Russia).
Very important from the point of view of reliability of environmental data of the GosComGidromet were the personal communications during the scientific-methodological conference organised by the Main Voeykov Geophysical Observatory (division of RosGidromet) and the Research Institute of Preservation of Atmospheric Air (Main Department of GosComEcologii for methodical support of air pollution researches) named «Actual problems of evaluation of air pollution by industry and transport in the cities and regions – calculated and measured data» (St.-Petersburg, Russia, 24—28 June, 1997).
CHAPTER 1
General Information About the System of Environmental Data Collection for the Territory of the former USSR
1.1. Sources of environmental information – problem of definition
First of all, we need to define, what should be considered under the term environmental information. At the present permanent definitions do not exist, in this work under the term environmental information will be considered all data about the state of the environment and public health (from official and non-official sources). Moreover, under the term environmental information will be included data on the influence of changes in the environment on the state of public health and on reaction of animals and plants to pollution. We will take into consideration preferably the data which was collected by the specialised organisations using certified methods, which allow estimation of the degree of their reliability.
Primary source of environmental information includes official issues, published by the specialised official organisations, on the basis of data collected by certified methods. Certainly, any data could be misrepresented by different reasons. For identification and avoiding of errors the evaluation of experts from organisations responsible for data preparation is necessary. Experts should be well-known in their field and well informed about possible ways of misrepresentation of primary data.
Due to the selection of primary sources of environmental information for this work the author used as a guiding principle the comprehension of presented information on the state of environment. Moreover, the study aimed to show the diversity of existing primary sources of environmental information and to give examples of the activities of all more or less known official organisations.
1.2. System for collection of environmental information in the former USSR and in the Russian Federation
1.2.1. Organisations responsible for collection of primary data
In the former USSR, there were several organisations which traditionally collected data on the state of the environment, pollution and public health. They are still existing at the present too, but several of them had changed names and have partly decreased the territory of monitoring after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 (for details see Chapter 2).
The main part of official environmental information is accumulated by the following organisations1:
– State Committee of the Russian Federation for Protection of the Environment (GosComEcologii) and its research and methodological departments (see Appendix 3 for details);
– Federal Service for the Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of the Russian Federation (RosGidromet), which has a wider spread network of stations for collecting monitoring data (see Appendix 3 and 4 for details);
– State’s Committee of Statistics (GosComStat), which gets primary data as reports from the plants, factories, transport and agricultural farms (see Appendix 3 for details);
– State’s Committee of Sanitary-Epidemic Inspection (GosComSanEpidNadzor) and Ministry of Health (MinZdrav), which have their own systems for data collection on the state of public
Names of the organisations referred their status for the 1996 (Larin, 1996);