Development and implementation of environmental monitoring and information systems for water resources

Environmental Management and Health 9/4 [1998] 153–159 © MCB University Press [ISSN 0956-6163] Attempts to examine the principles which lead to the exploration procedures to obviate environmental and natural resource degradation. The present and future state of water resources in both developed and developing countries are inextricably linked to the general behaviour of the economy and political, social and administrative structures. Globally, emphasis in water provision is systematically placed on potable water, but a great proportion of the world’s population’s water resources are wells, ponds, boreholes, streams, rivers, seas and oceans which are susceptible to contamination and pollution by natural and anthropogenic sources – industrial emissions, municipal waste sites, parasitic organisms, agriculture, etc. Suggests several developments and changes in global information and monitoring to stem further deterioration of water quality and to establish an acceptable state of the resource for the future. Introduction