Information requirements at national level

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E. Monitoring of Data

Modality of monitoring
Quality of data
Monitoring information for policy planning

Environmental monitoring is a most important and integral component of EA project cycle. Environmental monitoring program collect data on environmental indicators. Environmental indicators must be measurable and standardized. It provides valuable feedback information on actual environmental impacts of a project, which is useful on more effective planning for environmental conservation and management of project at program, plan to policy level.

It will help to verify level of success on environmental sustenance of a project as a result of adoption of an EIA practice.
It evaluates accuracy of impact prediction and increase predictive capability of EAs.
It determines effectiveness on implementation success of prescribed mitigation and enhancement measures.
It has been stressed that a link has to be established between human activities and their effects on the environment, as most impact are anthropogenic.

Monitoring involves systematic collection database to determine:

Actual environmental effects from the implementation of a development project
Compliance on environmental status of project area as per set regulatory standard
Information generated by monitoring programs provides the feedback necessary to ensure that environment conservation measures have been effective in relation to achieve the objective environmentally and socio-economically sustainable development at local and community level.

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Modality of monitoring:

The modality of environmental monitoring constitutes;

Collection of specific database from specified area.
Design sampling methodology
Provision of necessary survey equipments, computer soft wares.
Modern equipment/laboratory facility.
Provision of skilled, trained manpower.
Delegation of institutional responsibility.
Reporting requirements/ schedule.
Implementation and enforcement mechanism.
Provision of reliable funds.

Environmental monitoring program involves collection of data from scientific and systematic approach, analysis of data using statistical methods, remote sensing/GIS and computer aided decision support systems, etc. An environmental monitoring program basically constitutes following components:

Laboratory analysis/Instrument observation
Field observation
Stakeholders consultation involving:
Governmental organizations
Non governmental Organizations
Civil society/Villagers
Business companies
Research organizations

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Quality of data

Quality of environmental database in an EA/ Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) holds fundamental importance in making impact prediction, decision making and monitoring. Quality means a balance between costs and benefits. Quality aspect can be dealt under following subheadings:

Contents: Relevance of database directly relate with type of project and choice of variables. The data should be collected scientifically and be compatible for comparison with other data sources.

Time: Data come in different time frame such as; daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. It depends upon objective, duration, fund resource of a research projects. Time series data are useful for comparison.

Reliability: Overall reliability of data is difficult to ascertain. The adoption of latest internationally accepted methodology along with suitable equipment, reagents, clear description of investigated sample area, use of scientific and systematic approach, and adoption of well established statistical methods for data analysis will enhance reliability of database. Authenticity of database is cross checked during monitoring.

Availability: The value and use of data lie on its easy retrieval for wider use and comparison. Hence the database should be in user friendly versions and formats.

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Monitoring information for policy planning:

An environmental monitoring may be baseline monitoring or compliance monitoring. Many environmental problems are economic problems as well having social connections. Hence monitoring involves multidisciplinary aspects from technical to semi and non technical issues. Aside a few technocrats, most bureaucrats are of non-technical background. This demands simplicity of environmental information to be easily digested by even non-technical policy planners to lay persons of civic society, key stakeholder at field level.

Environmental information is a composite of physical, biological and socio-economic aspects comprising technical ones such as data on water quality. Scientific data is relatively difficult to generate as compared to socio-economic data. Local people can help in monitoring of local area, as they are well acquainted with the area. Monitoring of information for policy planning can have different source such as:

National environmental databank
Governmental offices/research laboratory, research centres
Private sector expert/institution
Unpublished data from laboratory of industrial companies
Published data journals/ collected by national/int’l scientists
Data collected by local community members

For effective monitoring of information for policy planning, there should be integration of physical, biological and economic information from national environmental database. Adequacy of available environmental information for utilization at strategic level: policy, plan and programs, should be evaluated and periodically updated.

Some examples of environmental monitoring:

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