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

In accordance with last trends in the environmental policy of the Russian Federations the establishment of EGSEM does not seem a realistic project for the future several years (for details see Chapter 4.3.2.). The project as a whole could be realised only if sufficient funding is provided by the government.

1.3.2. Steps for creation of the EGSEM

In accordance with opinion of the experts, creation of the Integrated State System for the Environmental Monitoring should contain the following:

– monitoring of sources of anthropogenic pressure on the environment;

– monitoring of pollution of abiotic elements of the environment;

– monitoring of pollution of biotic elements of the environment;

– creation and application of environmental information systems.

All activities for the creation of EGSEM are carried out in accordance with the Decree of the Council of Ministers – Government of the Russian Federation, 24 November, 1993 (O povishenii effektivnosti…, 1995). Many official organisations were involved in this process, including: State Committee of the Russian Federation for Protection of the Environment, Ministry of Emergency Situations, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Fuel and Energy, Committee for Soil Resources, Committee for the Resources of Bowels and several others.

In the different regions of the Russian Federation experimental branches of the EGSEM already exist. There are experimental departments on the territory of the Kurgan, Kaluga, Amur, Chelyabinsk, Perm’ and Orenburg oblasts (provinces); on the territory of the Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi autonomy districts; in the republics of Mordovia, Karelia, Chuvashia; in the region of the Caucasus Mineral Waters (Stavropol Kray).

For example, as a result of collaboration between Kaluga’s Regional Committee for Ecology and GosComEcologii in the Kaluga region a second level Regional System of Environmental Monitoring was created. Moreover, the Regional Information and Analysis Center which works as a department of the Regional Committee for Protection of Nature of the Kaluga oblast was created. Besides there already exist a second level of System for Analysis of Environmental Information on the basis of geoinformation technology for saving and processing environmental data in the system Windows for Workgroups, Arc View – 1.2.

Another example for the future elements of the EGSEM is the regional subsystem of the Perm’ oblast where monitoring is organised for:

– state of the air;

– state of the surface waters;

– pollution of underground waters;

– state of the forests;

– discharge and pollution from the industry;

– environmental factors influencing public health (radiological, toxicological, sanitary-hygienic, micro biological and physical) (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

1.3.3. Existed elements of the EGSEM

At present the regional branches of GosComEcologii are carrying out monitoring of the sources of air pollution (quantity and composition of pollutants emitted to the atmosphere from the industry, agricultural farms and transport). 18.380 sources in 459 cities of the Russian Federation are controlled (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

The State Service of Monitoring of Environmental Pollution (GSN) is carrying out monitoring of pollution of abiotic elements of the environment in the framework of EGSEM. Main aims of this system are:

– data collection on the state and levels of contamination of atmospheric air, fresh and sea water, soils and geological systems;

– to supply of the organisations involved in the General State System for the Warning and Liquidation of Consequences of Emergency Situations with relevant prognostic and operational information for the purpose population security; mitigation of consequences of extraordinary situations; decrease losses for the economy from natural disasters and antropogenic accidents;

– to supply of the agriculture, forestry, water users and municipal authorities, power engineering, transport, construction and other services with information about expected unfavourable events in the state of environment which can affect their functioning (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

In the framework of the State’s Service of Monitoring of Environmental Pollution in the Russian Federation monitoring of air pollution is carried out in 284 cities and at 664 stations (in 234 cities this monitoring is provided by the departments of RosGidromet).

State Monitoring for the Geological Systems (GMGS) is a federal system of monitoring, evaluation, control and prognosis of the state of geological systems and their changes. The system of GMGS functions on the territory of the Russian Federation and includes the following elements:

– state framework of monitoring including monitoring 15.000 sites of for underground waters; 700 points for dangerous exogenic processes; 5 ranges and 30 chinks for research and forecast of earthquakes and seismic monitoring; 1 geochemical range and 5 stations for monitoring of geocriogenesis;

– local frameworks of monitoring of underground resource use;

– 57 regional centres of GMGS are included in local geological committees and geological industrial bodies;

– 3 regional centres of GMGS created in Central, North-Western and North Caucasus Regional Geological Centres (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

1.3.4. Planning elements of the EGSEM

In accordance with the Decree of the Council of Ministers – Government of Russian Federation from 21 November 1993 No 1229 all miniseries and organisations of the mining industry should provide environmental monitoring. Moreover, MinPrirodi approved project «Temporary order of the mining-industrial environmental monitoring».

In 1995 the State’s Inspection on the Safe Use of Underground Resources (GosGorTechNadzor) checked the state of the environmental monitoring in the main ministries and organisations of the mining industry. The results showed, that environmental monitoring was done on extremely seldom basis.

For evaluation of undesirable impact of space rockets on the environment, Russian Space Agency (RKA) had established the System of Environmental Monitoring for Cosmodromes and Rockets Launches (SEMK).

In 1995 the first demonstration variant of SEMK was prepared. The main activities of SEMK included:

– display of different levels of geographical information about the state of environment in the routes of the rockets launches and location of places where of rocket falling parts is possible;

– creation of digital geographical maps and determination of subjects’ location on the surface;

– comparable evaluation of the environmental safety of rockets launches for different routes; evaluation of sizes of the areas which should be closed for other activities (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

Among all the areas of environmental monitoring the most complicated and less developed both one in Russia and other countries is the monitoring of biota. Though a lot of publications exist devoted to the monitoring of different species and problems of bioindication in general, it is difficult to apply most of them in EGSEM because of the lack of unified methods.

At present in the frame of GosComEcologii elaboration of the system for monitoring of biota for the purposes of EGSEM has begun. This system includes three main elements:

– monitoring of flora;

– monitoring of fauna;

– monitoring of biota in protected areas.

The primary aim of this research identifies the more important indicators for each block of monitoring on federal and regional levels (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

1.3.5. International obligations of the Russian Federation in the field of environmental monitoring

Activities in the Russian Federations related to international obligation in the field of environmental monitoring:

– development of the project «Global Environmental Monitoring for Natural Disasters»;

– development of the project «Arctic Monitoring»;

– integration into the international systems for environmental monitoring GSMOS/UNEP and GRID/UNEP;

– creation of International System of Environmental Monitoring of the states-members of CIS (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

1.3.6. Main directions of increasing efficiency of actions for the creation of EGSEM

In accordance with the decisions of the Interagency Commission on Ecological Security of the National Security Council of the Russian Federation, adopted on 19 December 1995 (O povishenii effektivnosti…, 1995), the main directions of increasing efficiency of the actions for creation of EGSEM are:

– actions for faster adoption of the Federal Programme for Creation of EGSEM; adoption of Regulations on Federal Sub-Systems of EGSEM;

– actions of Ministries for the application of a systems for environmental monitoring of antropogenic influences of industrial and agricultural enterprises;

– actions of regional branches of GosComEcologii for control of observance of permissible norms of emissions of pollutants into the environment;

– actions for creation of regional sub-systems of EGSEM;

– adoption of the documents for regulation at activities of EGSEM and GSN;

– improvement of the existing system of environmental monitoring;

– improvement of the financial support for EGSEM programs from Federal authorities and regional environmental Funds (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1996).

The creation of EGSEM will allow to unify data collected on the basis of common standards. Moreover, environmental information will be more accessible by different groups of users.

At present on the territory of the former Soviet Union there is no common center for collection of environmental information. Besides there is no single library with books or databases about environmental problems of Newly Independent States.

1.4. Problem of secrecy and difficulty in accessing environmental information

1.4.1. Information «for official use only» («DSP»)

All information about the state of the environment in the USSR had different grades of secrecy. It was inaccessible for independent researchers, for the press and for the public. There was strict internal control in all State’s organisations which were collecting or analysing data about the state of environment. This was done in order to prevent passing data of environmental monitoring or of analysis of this data to the public (Larin, 1997).

Widely spread was the stamp «for official use only» («DSP»). Publications devoted to the pollution of environment in the former Soviet Union had this stamp. Even in the case when independent researchers had access to publications of GosComStat or GosComGidromet, reference to that information was prohibited by State political censorship. No publisher could publish material with data from issues with the stamp «DSP» or data on environmental pollution without reference to sources of information. Foreign sources of information on pollution of the environment in the USSR also were unavailable to the public.

1.4.2. First open publications of environmental data

The first official edition published in the press in 1987 named «Natural resources and protection of the environment» was the Jubilee statistical annual report of GosComStat USSR entitled «National Economics of the USSR for the 70 years» (Narodnoye choziaystvo SSSR za 70 let, 1987). This part of 766-pages volume contained 12 pages with very general figures, mainly devoted to utilisation of natural resources. This statistical annual report was published in 25.000 copes and in accordance with opinion of Head of Department of the Environmental Statistics of the GosComStat believes that it was an enormous success for that time (Dumnov, pers.comm.).

After the appearance of the Jubilee statistical annual report of GosComStat USSR periodical publications with more or less complete collections of data devoted to the problems of environmental pollution and natural disasters began. This was a remarkable point in the real beginning of the «perestroyka» in the USSR, which several years had been under the «green» slogans.

Around this time stamps «DSP» were cancelled from publications of GosComGidromet devoted to the monitoring of air and water pollution, background monitoring of environment, nuclear contamination, etc. It was possible to use data from those annual reports without fear, but they did not become more accessible. Political censorship was replaced by commercial censorship. The holders of primary data on the state of the environment for several decades now understood that this information is expensive and it should be sold, but there was no department responsible for trading of information. As a result the situation of independent researchers looking for reliable environmental information in the CIS today is not much better than in the times of the USSR.

1.4.3. Appearance of the «commercial censorship»

The problem is even more complicated because most of publications and data collections were published in only 40—200 copies and are very rare. To publish extra copies governmental organisations have no money, meanwhile the commercial organisations are not interested in selling environmental information on a wide scale. Moreover, the problem of trading information collected on the money from budget is unclear. This information should be spread free of charge or for modest payment because collection and processing of this information was already paid for from the budget i.e. taxpayer’s money.

Only several segments of data on the state of the environment in the Russian Federation, which is the successor state of the USSR ias concerns environmental information is still confidential; e.g. data on the state of nuclear navy and contamination of the environment linked to recycling of nuclear wastes. It is still difficult to obtain important non-confidential information for research because it is kept in different organisations in the different cities of Russia.

Large blocks of environmental information for the territory of the former USSR are located in Moscow, St.-Petersburg, Rostov-na-Donu and Obninsk (small city in Kaluga region about 100km S-W of Moscow). This is data concerning the whole territory of the former USSR. Primary environmental information about the state of the environment is kept in these regional centres. Besides, every organisation collecting this data has its own frameworks for collection and places (cities) for keeping data. In accordance to expert’s predictions, the creating of EGSEM could help to organise all these parts of environmental information in several large regional centres (for details see Chapter 2). Moreover, there will be an evaluation of the degree of reliability of this data and its accessibility for independent researchers.

1.4.4. Accessible places for keeping environmental information

There are several available to independent researchers places where data on the environment is kept. Each of these places for keeping of environmental information is specialised in different types of data collection. Unfortunately, due to financial limitations complete collection of all types of environmental data is not available.

The best libraries with environmental information are:

– library of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University (Budapest, Hungary) has more completed collection of data and environmental information for the territory of the former USSR, but it is not accessible for researchers from NIS countries because it is located abroad;

– library of the Socio-Ecological Union «EcoLine» (Moscow, Russia) collected by SoES and another NGO «Ecologiya», is not a big collection because of lack of funding;

– library of the Moscow Ecopresscenter (Moscow, Russia) is not complete, but contains the main publications of the GosComGidromet, GosComEcologii and GosComStat.

1.5. How to use collected environmental information

Environmental information collected by the official organisations both in Soviet times and at present was used for making of important political decisions about location of new industries and for adoption of state’s environmental policy.

In Soviet times, all important decisions were adopted by a narrow group of experts without discussion with independent researchers and without public participation. As a result of this policy serious mistakes and wide-scale environmental disasters happened very often. At present the process of decision-making has a more democratic character, but it also has problems linked to the communist past of most modern leaders. Adaptation of the new methods for decision making is still difficult.

Among the last achievements in the sphere of publication and application of environmental information collected by the governmental organisations the Annual Reports on the State of the Environment in Russian Federation prepared by the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Protection of the Environment (GosComEcologii) should be mentioned.

The first Soviet report from this series for the territory of the USSR was prepared in 1988. A more completed report was prepared for the Conference in Rio-de-Janeiro in 1992, but in that time the USSR was collapsing and this report appeared as the first State’s Report on the State of the Environment of the Russian Federation for 1991 (Gosudarstvenniy Doklad…, 1992) and as separate reports several other states of CIS. For the appearance of this report a remarkable role played the Counsellor for Ecology and Environment Protection Policy of the President of Russian Federation Alexey V. Yablokov.

The last report of this series was for 1996. From year to year reports become bigger by volume and by diversity of examined problems. It should be noted that the possibility for acquaintance with the completed versions of the Report is difficult for the public yet because it is printed in limited copies and is not for sale. Several «green» newspapers publish short versions of the Report. Moreover, environmental researchers and journalists can visit the GosComEcologii to study the complete text of the Annual State’s Report on the State of Environment of the Russian Federation.

CHAPTER 2

Role and Place of the Main Environmental Organisations in the System for Collection of Environmental Information

2.1. System for collection of environmental information in the Russian Federation

Before the collapse of the USSR the Russian Federation had main role in the system of environmental monitoring and collection of data on the state of the environment for all the territory of the country. In Moscow, St.-Petersburg, Rostov-na-Donu, Obninsk and several others centres, situated in the Russian Federation, all data of monitoring, more or less processed, was accumulated.

Russian research and methodological institutions were the leading in the development of methods for proper and correct collection of primary data for all republics of the former Soviet Union. As an example, could be named the last edition of the «Manual Instruction for the Control of Atmospherics Pollution RD 52.04.186—89» (Rukovodstvo po kontrolu…, 1991), prepared under the supervision of the State Committee of the USSR for Hydrometeorology (Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of the Russian Federation at present) and Ministry of Health of the USSR.

The Russian system for collection of environmental information was affected to lesser degree after the collapse of the USSR in comparison with similar systems of the other NIS countries. In spite of the financial and structural crisis collecting of data on the state of environment did not stop, moreover in some cases it even increased (Tsaturov, pers.comm.).

The centralised system existing in the USSR enforced republics to send information to the Center – Moscow and several main centres – not only for keeping of data but also for data processing. Therefore, almost all data, collected during the history of the USSR is stored in several main organisations. Most of the data on the state of environment and its influence on public health, presented in annual reports of the RosGidromet, GosComStat, MinZdrav, etc. could be founded in Moscow, St.-Petersburg, Rostov-na-Donu and Obninsk.

The former Soviet republics kept information which was only on the state of environment on their respective territories. In many Newly Independent States the volume of data collecting decreased as a result of political, financial and other reasons. Data on the state of the environment after 1991 in the whole volume could be founded only in maim environmental organisations NIS, located in Moscow – if it is collected, processed and published.

Main parts of the data collected before the collapse of the USSR could be found in Moscow or in several regional centres, specialised in collecting special environmental information. For example, in the system of RosGidromet St.-Petersburg specialised in information on the state of air pollution (monitoring, processing of collected primary data, methodical support of all these actions). Rostov-na-Donu specialised in information on the state of fresh water pollution (monitoring, processing of collected data, methodical support). In Moscow is located the main office and several specialised departments (for monitoring of sea pollution, soil pollution, radioactive contamination, etc.). In Obninsk is located the International Center for data collection all meteorological information and data on environmental monitoring is kept (for details see Chapter 2.3.).

Within the system of GosComStat all environmental information, collected in the regions, comes to the main office in Moscow, where it is used for of preparation reference books and data collections (for details see Chapter 2.4.).

However, most of all environmental information of the former USSR and partly of NIS kept in the governmental organisations of Russian Federation.

2.2. Existing sources of environmental information

2.2.1. Institutional and organisational set-up of reporting and indicator framework

in the NIS

In the recent work «Environmental Reporting in Central and Eastern Europe: A Review of Selected Publications and Frameworks», the authors notice, that:

Only in very few cases in the required data collected within the systems of national environmental authorities. More often they have to count on information obtained by monitoring networks belonging to other agencies. These agencies are either responsible for the exploitation of natural resources not covered by the mandate of an environmental authority (e.g., mineral resources, waters, forests, lands, commercial wildlife and fish resources),for specific aspects of environmental issues (e.g., public health, emergency situations) or for collecting and managing specific types of information (e.g., national statistical offices, surveying and cartographic agencies, networks of hydrological and meteorological observations). Information may also be received from research and academic institutions and NGOs, however the extent of such co-operation depends upon a country’s attitude towards «unofficial» sources of information. (UNDP/CEU, Denisov et al., 1997).

From the point of view of governmental officers all reliable environmental information could be collected only by official organisations specialised for environmental monitoring (RosGidromet) or in collecting data about environmental pollution and influence of pollution on public health (GosComStat, MinZdrav, GosComSanEpidNadzor) (for details about limitations of official and non-official environmental information see Chapter 2.2.2. and 2.5.3.).

2.2.2. Limitations of reliability of collected data

Every system for collecting environmental information has limitations linking with the reliability of collected data. This limitation could be:

– methodological, due to incorrect or wrong methods of collecting and processing of data;

– technical, due to differences in equipment and used to wrong regulation of this equipment;

– organisational, due to problems of organisation of permanent work of system for collection of unified data from the vast territory. There is not enough control for quality of environmental information collected by the remote stations of environmental monitoring.