Environmental monitoring and geographic-ecological expertise

Monitoring is a system of observing, controlling and managing the condition of an area in order to use natural resources sensibly and protect the environment. Its task is to follow changes in the environment linked to human activity, assess them and take management measures; change is compared with the unpolluted natural state. I. P. Gerasimov distinguished three stages of monitoring: bioecological (the effect of pollution on human health), geoecological (natural and altered geosystems, permissible limits, self-cleaning) and biospheric (at world scale, for example atmospheric dust, pollution of the World Ocean, the ozone layer). In Uzbekistan the hydrometeorological service observes air and water, geology organisations monitor groundwater, agriculture and water management bodies monitor salinity and land reclamation, and the health system monitors health questions, while the state ecology body coordinates their work. Expertise is the review of large projects by specialists; a geographic-ecological expertise assesses the project's effect on environment, nature and public health and either approves it or requires changes.