What is the question, and what does the answer mean?
All over Europe, environmental issues are high on the agenda. Land use conflicts, managing industrial emissions, remediation of contaminated soils are all disputed topics. In order to solve these matters, governmental bodies develop environmental legislation and politics on national, regional or local scale. Governmental bodies on national, regional or local levels have to supervise and manage these issues. The solutions often involve some kind of environmental assessments made by the governmental body itself or a consultant. New concepts for environmental assessments are developed constantly. However, it has long become impossible for any single person to be truly familiar with in all techniques and concepts, let alone to find the right solution for the environmental problem in question.
Crude oil spill, North Sea.
Assessing the environmental assessments
Geological Surveys however, often hold a network of skilled scientists with state of the art knowledge on techniques and solutions. They can act as a discussion partner and provide support to governmental bodies in their legislative process. When solving concrete cases, such as managing a contaminated site, the surveys can assist clients in putting up terms of reference for further investigations, diagnosis, revising documents and appraisals and in assessing investigations made by environmental consultants. Such 3rd party expertise and audit is important to ensure optimum use of money in solving environmental issues.
Sampling of hydrocarbons contaminated groundwater, Norway. Photo: M.Klonowski
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