A status report on environmental monitoring

Environmental issues receive increasingly greater attention in the technical, scientific, and popular press. On a global scale, sophisticated measurements are available using satellite-based instruments. This type of monitoring is known as remote sensing, a topic not covered in this paper. This paper discusses the social/political forces which determine environmental monitoring on a more immediate local level, the implementation areas typified by industrial, agricultural, and environmental sampling applications, and briefly touches on technological advances bringing new techniques and capabilities to the solution of environmental monitoring problems. Because the topical area is very broad, any survey treatment of it must necessarily omit many details. This paper is intended to provide information introducing environmental monitoring as it now exists and to suggest opportunities for participation in environmental work.