Environmental monitoring in the context of Ionization chamber

An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, meteorology, cartography and others. The most common type are Earth imaging satellites, that take satellite images, analogous to aerial photographs; some EO satellites may perform remote sensing without forming pictures, such as in GNSS radio occultation.

The first occurrence of satellite remote sensing can be dated to the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1 sent back radio signals, which scientists used to study the ionosphere.The United States Army Ballistic Missile Agency launched the first American satellite, Explorer 1, for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on January 31, 1958. The information sent back from its radiation detector led to the discovery of the Earth's Van Allen radiation belts. The TIROS-1 spacecraft, launched on April 1, 1960, as part of NASA's Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) program, sent back the first television footage of weather patterns to be taken from space.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers on board, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans, and by the twenty-first, they had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications. These include aerial photography, area coverage, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring, river monitoring, environmental monitoring, weather observation, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, product deliveries, entertainment and drone racing.

Microscale meteorology or micrometeorology is the study of short-lived atmospheric phenomena smaller than mesoscale, about 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) or less. These two branches of meteorology are sometimes grouped together as "mesoscale and microscale meteorology" (MMM) and together study all phenomena smaller than synoptic scale; that is they study features generally too small to be depicted on a standard weather map. These include small and generally fleeting cloud "puffs" and other small cloud features. Microscale meteorology controls the most important mixing and dilution processes in the atmosphere. Important topics in microscale meteorology include heat transfer and gas exchange between soil, vegetation, and/or surface water and the atmosphere caused by near-ground turbulence. Measuring these transport processes involves use of micrometeorological (or flux) towers. Variables often measured or derived include net radiation, sensible heat flux, latent heat flux, ground heat storage, and fluxes of trace gases important to the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere.

A micronet is an atmospheric and/or environmental observation network, composed of automated weather stations, used to monitor microscale phenomena. Micronets are sometimes considered a subtype of mesonet, and many micronets are a denser spatial resolution sub-network of a mesonet.

Ny-Ålesund ("New Ålesund") is a small town in Oscar II Land in the west of the island of Spitsbergen in Svalbard. It is situated on the Brøgger peninsula (Brøggerhalvøya) and on the shore of the bay of Kongsfjorden. The company town is owned and operated by Kings Bay, which provides facilities for permanent research activities by 19 institutions from 11 countries. The town is ultimately owned by the Ministry of Climate and Environment and is not incorporated (i.e. is not recognised as a town by the Norwegian government). Ny-Ålesund has an all-year permanent population of 30 to 35, with the summer population reaching 114. Its facilities include Ny-Ålesund Airport, Hamnerabben, Svalbard Rocket Range, a port and Ny-Ålesund Town and Mine Museum, as well as a number of buildings dedicated to research and environmental monitoring activities. It is the northernmost functional civilian settlement in the world.

The town was founded in 1917 by Peter Brandal and his mining company, Kings Bay Kull Comp. Initially, mining was carried out until 1929, but it was unprofitable for most of the 1920s. A series of air expeditions were launched from Ny-Ålesund towards the North Pole. The company was nationalized in 1933 and the town was used for tourism and as a fishing port. Mining resumed for some months in 1941 and then from 1945. After several fatal incidents occurred including a mining accident on 5 November 1962 that killed 21 miners in what became known as the Kings Bay Affair, mining activity was terminated and Gerhardsen's Third Cabinet resigned. Kongsfjord Telemetry Station opened in 1967 and the town gradually transformed into a research settlement, with the Norwegian Polar Institute having had a year-round presence since 1968. As of 2021, 18 institutions from 11 countries have a more or less permanent presence in Ny-Ålesund – five of them with year-round activity, the remaining are primarily present during the spring-summer-autumn field season.

Contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) is a term used by water quality professionals to describe pollutants that have been detected in environmental monitoring samples, that may cause ecological or human health impacts, and typically are not regulated under current environmental laws. Sources of these pollutants include agriculture, urban runoff and ordinary household products (such as soaps and disinfectants) and pharmaceuticals that are disposed to sewage treatment plants and subsequently discharged to surface waters.

CEC include different substances like pharmaceuticals, personal care products, industrial byproducts, and agricultural chemicals. These substances often bypass regular detection and treatment processes, leading to their unintended persistence in the environment. The complexity of CEC arises not only from their different chemical nature but also from the complex ways they interact with ecosystems and human health. As such, they are the focus of increasing examination by researchers, policymakers, and public health officials who want to understand their long-term effects and develop effective interventions. Global initiatives, like those from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), emphasize the need to create international standards and effective environmental policies to address the challenges posed by CEC. Public awareness and advocacy play crucial roles in driving the research agenda and policy development for CEC, highlighting the need for updated manufacturing practices and developing more remediation and detection methods.

The Polesie State Radioecological Reserve (PSRER; Belarusian: Палескі дзяржаўны радыяцыйна-экалагічны запаведнік, romanized: Palyeski dzyarzhawny radyyatsyyna-ekalahichny zapavyednik; Russian: Полесский государственный радиационно-экологический заповедник, romanized: Polessky gosudarstvenny radiatsionno-ekologichesky zapovednik) is a radioecological nature reserve in the Polesie region of Belarus, which was created to enclose the territory of Belarus most affected by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. The reserve adjoins the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine. The environmental monitoring and countermeasure agency, Bellesrad, oversees the agriculture and forestry in the area.

In meteorology and climatology, a mesonet, portmanteau of mesoscale network, is a network of automated weather and, often also including environmental monitoring stations, designed to observe mesoscale meteorological phenomena and/or microclimates.

Dry lines, squall lines, and sea breezes are examples of phenomena observed by mesonets. Due to the space and time scales associated with mesoscale phenomena and microclimates, weather stations comprising a mesonet are spaced closer together and report more frequently than synoptic scale observing networks, such as the WMO Global Observing System (GOS) and US ASOS. The term mesonet refers to the collective group of these weather stations, which are usually owned and operated by a common entity. Mesonets generally record in situ surface weather observations but some involve other observation platforms, particularly vertical profiles of the planetary boundary layer (PBL). Other environmental parameters may include insolation and various variables of interest to particular users, such as soil temperature or road conditions (the latter notable in Road Weather Information System (RWIS) networks).

An agricultural robot is a robot deployed for agricultural purposes. The main area of application of robots in agriculture today is at the harvesting stage. Emerging applications of robots or drones in agriculture include weed control, planting seeds, harvesting, environmental monitoring and soil analysis. According to Verified Market Research, the agricultural robots market is expected to reach $11.58 billion by 2025.

Environmental volunteers conduct a range of activities including environmental monitoring (e.g. wildlife); ecological restoration such as revegetation and weed removal, and educating others about the natural environment. They also participate in community based projects, improving footpaths, open spaces, and local amenities for the benefit of the local community and visitors. The uptake of environmental volunteering stems in part from the benefits for the volunteers themselves, such as improving social networks and developing a sense of place.

Machine olfaction is the automated simulation of the sense of smell. An emerging application in modern engineering, it involves the use of robots or other automated systems to analyze air-borne chemicals. Such an apparatus is often called an electronic nose or e-nose. The development of machine olfaction is complicated by the fact that e-nose devices to date have responded to a limited number of chemicals, whereas odors are produced by unique sets of (potentially numerous) odorant compounds. The technology, though still in the early stages of development, promises many applications, such as:quality control in food processing, detection and diagnosis in medicine, detection of drugs, explosives and other dangerous or illegal substances, disaster response, and environmental monitoring.

One type of proposed machine olfaction technology is via gas sensor array instruments capable of detecting, identifying, and measuring volatile compounds. However, a critical element in the development of these instruments is pattern analysis, and the successful design of a pattern analysis system for machine olfaction requires a careful consideration of the various issues involved in processing multivariate data: signal-preprocessing, feature extraction, feature selection, classification, regression, clustering, and validation. Another challenge in current research on machine olfaction is the need to predict or estimate the sensor response to aroma mixtures. Some pattern recognition problems in machine olfaction such as odor classification and odor localization can be solved by using time series kernel methods.