Economic Foundations of Integrated Environmental Monitoring

Monitoring has traditionally been carried out along single disciplinary lines, even though it is a basic process to resource management and can never rely on a single discipline. The single disciplined monitoring led to the impossibility of predicting several environmental problems (e.g., forest damage from air pollution). A comprehensive understanding of the interaction of environmental elements requires an integrated approach to environmental monitoring, not just the consideration of physical, chemical, biological, or socio-economic aspects. This paper discusses the issue related to integrated environmental monitoring. It defines integrated monitoring, explores why integrated monitoring is usually not carried out. Some examples are provided. The authors discuss the role of long-term ecological research and monitoring. The focus is made on the role of the regions and the problems of regional monitoring. The authors outline the requirements necessary for comprehensive monitoring. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.