Regional Monitoring of Natural Environment 2003, No 4, 23-28
THE PROPOSITION OF GEOSPHERE MONITORING
Stefan Kozłowski
Summary
Principles of the State Environmental Monitoring were defined 10 years ago. Collected data and development of sciences indicate the need of revision and modification of SEM. The presented article underlines the necessity to extend and treat in a more complex way the „nature monitoring” concept. Firstly, it refers to the need of extension of monitoring of abiotic elements of the nature. Consequently, introduction of the geosphere monitoring, as a new sub-system in the section of environmental quality assessment has been proposed. It will include 8 elements: present deformations and tensions in the upper layer of the lithosphere, changes of the geomagnetic field and the gravity field, changes of temperatures of upper layers of the lithosphere, geochemical changes in industrial and settlement areas, geochemical changes of river sediments in Poland, geochemical changes of sediments of the Polish part of the Baltic, geochemical changes around chosen waste dumps, changes of underground waters.
Implementation of the geosphere monitoring will assure ecological safety of inhabitants of Poland. It should also deliver interesting data useful to formulate sustainable development objectives. This refers especially to such elaborations, as: regional ecological policy, development strategies for voivodeships, counties and communes. The geosphere monitoring will also allow to protect from serious ecological catastrophes and in the same time will help to reduce considerable potential costs of such catastrophes. Thanks to the implementation of this programme, Poland will be able to meet requirements resulting from international obligations of the geosphere change assessment, with particular regard to waters.
