Sources of Ecological Information

General Provisions

Sources of environmental information play a key role in ensuring transparency and efficiency in the management of natural resources and environmental protection. These include laws and normative legal acts, state statistics, environmental monitoring, cadastres and registers of natural resources, environmental documentation of enterprises, as well as reports from government and public organizations. This data allows for forming a comprehensive understanding of the condition of ecosystems and the extent of the impact of economic activities on nature.

The state statistical accounting and reporting conducted by Rosstat and its structural units provide systematic information on the state of the environment. They include indicators of air, water, and soil pollution, volumes of waste generation and consumption of natural resources, which allows for assessing the effectiveness of environmental protection measures and adjusting environmental regulation policy.

The Unified State Environmental Monitoring System integrates observations of the atmosphere, water bodies, land, forests, wildlife objects, and unique ecosystems such as Lake Baikal. The creation of monitoring subsystems allows for identifying changes in the environment's condition, predicting the consequences of economic activities, and providing timely information to government authorities, businesses, and society.

Environmental documentation of enterprises, including environmental passports, radiation-hygienic passports, and industrial safety declarations, provides detailed information on the impact of organizations on the environment. These documents record volumes of natural resource use, emissions and discharges, compliance with standards, and measures to prevent accidents, ensuring comprehensive control over environmental safety.

State cadastres and registers of natural resources, as well as federal registries of potentially hazardous substances and objects, allow for the systematic organization of information on ecologically significant objects. The combination of these sources provides citizens, organizations, and government authorities with access to reliable information about the state of the environment, promotes the rational use of resources, and helps prevent environmental damage.

In scientific literature¹, the following sources of environmental information are identified: laws and other normative legal acts; state statistical accounting and reporting; environmental monitoring; state cadastres and registers of natural resources; registries and lists of substances, objects, and structures with ecological significance; environmental documentation of enterprises; the State Report "On the State and Protection of the Environment of the Russian Federation"; reports and other data available in government and public organizations; media messages.

The state statistical accounting and reporting in the field of environmental protection is carried out by the statistics management for agriculture and natural environment, which is a structural unit of the central apparatus of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat)².

Among the state cadastres and registers of natural resources, it is possible to highlight: the state real estate cadaster; the state cadaster of mineral deposits and occurrences; the state cadaster of wildlife objects; the state fisheries register; the state cadaster of specially protected natural territories; the state forestry register; the state water register; the state waste cadaster; the Red Book of the Russian Federation³.

Federal executive bodies and state authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation carry out state environmental monitoring (state monitoring of the environment) within the framework of a unified system of state environmental monitoring (state monitoring of the environment), in accordance with their competence established by the legislation of the Russian Federation, through the creation and maintenance of observation networks and information resources within the subsystems of the unified system of state environmental monitoring (state monitoring of the environment), as well as through the creation and operation of a state data fund by the federal executive body authorized by the Government of the Russian Federation ⁴ (Article 63 of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection").

The unified state environmental monitoring system (state monitoring of the environment) is established in order to ensure environmental protection. The objectives of the unified state environmental monitoring system (state monitoring of the environment) are: regular observation of the state of the environment, including components of the natural environment, natural ecological systems, processes and phenomena occurring within them, changes in the state of the environment; storage, processing (generalization, systematization) of information on the state of the environment; analysis of the obtained information for timely identification of changes in the state of the environment under the influence of natural and (or) anthropogenic factors, assessment and forecasting of these changes; provision of information on the state of the environment to state authorities, local self-government bodies, legal entities, individual entrepreneurs, and citizens.

Unified State Environmental Monitoring System (State Environmental Monitoring) includes the following subsystems: state monitoring of the condition and pollution of the environment; state monitoring of atmospheric air; state monitoring of radiation conditions on the territory of the Russian Federation; state monitoring of land; state monitoring of wildlife objects; state forest pathology monitoring; state monitoring of the condition of subsoil; state monitoring of water objects; state monitoring of aquatic biological resources; state monitoring of internal waters and the territorial sea of the Russian Federation; state monitoring of the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation; state monitoring of the continental shelf of the Russian Federation; state ecological monitoring of the unique ecological system of Lake Baikal; state monitoring of hunting resources and their environment habitats (Article 63.1 of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection").

Among the registers and registries of substances and structures of objects with ecological significance, highlighted in scientific literature are: The Federal Register of Potentially Hazardous Chemical and Biological Substances; The Russian Register of Hydraulic Engineering Structures; The State Register of Hazardous Production Facilities; The State Register of Waste Disposal Sites⁵.

Ecological documentation of enterprises includes: the ecological passport of a natural resource user; radiation-hygienic passports of organizations and territories; the safety declaration of an industrial facility.

The ecological passport of a natural resource user is a document containing information on the level of resource use by the natural resource user and the degree of impact of its production on the surrounding natural environment, as well as information on permits for the right to use natural resources, impact norms, and the amounts of payments for pollution of the surrounding natural environment and use of natural resources⁶.

Radiation-hygienic passports of organizations and territories are the main documents characterizing the radiation safety of organizations and territories⁷. Radiation-hygienic passporting of organizations and territories is a state system for assessing the impact of major sources of ionizing radiation (technogenic and natural) and is aimed at ensuring radiation safety of the population depending on the living environment and conditions of life activity, which are associated with other monitoring systems for ionizing radiation⁸.

The development of an industrial safety declaration involves: a comprehensive risk assessment of an accident and the associated threat; analysis of the adequacy of measures taken to prevent accidents, ensure the organization's readiness for operation of a hazardous production facility in accordance with industrial safety requirements, as well as readiness for localization and elimination of the consequences of an accident at a hazardous production facility; development of measures aimed at reducing the scale of the consequences of an accident and the extent of damage caused in the event of an accident at a hazardous production facility⁹.

Represents a documented, systematic compilation of analytical information on the state of the environment, including components of the natural environment, natural ecological systems, processes and phenomena occurring within them, as well as results of assessments and forecasts of changes in the state of the environment under the influence of natural and anthropogenic factors.

Is prepared in order to ensure the implementation of citizens' rights to reliable information on the state of the environment and to provide information support for the activities of federal government bodies, government bodies of the subjects of the Russian Federation, local self-government bodies, public and other non-profit organizations, legal entities and individuals aimed at preserving and restoring the natural environment, rational use and reproduction of natural resources, preventing the adverse impact of economic and other activities on the environment and eliminating its consequences¹⁰. Preparation and dissemination is organized by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of Russia)¹¹.