Environmental monitoring in the making: from surveying nature's resources to monitoring nature's change

Abstract: This article examines the nexus of ecological science and environmental politics by considering the tensions between the global circulation of the notion of “environmental monitoring” and the local production of data on environmental change. The history of the planning of the Global Network of Environmental Monitoring (GNEM) program provides a glimpse of what it takes to launch a program of environmental monitoring globally on the level of intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations. The first part of the paper traces the GNEM project as it moved through different international agencies and international programs in the 1960s and 1970s. The second part explores the local story of the environmental monitoring of Lake Baikal. The emergence of “environmental monitoring” as an issue of global concern, and the local story of environmental monitoring of Lake Baikal were interrelated, but only in theory: Rather than boosting the already ongoing local monitoring of Lake Bai

Object Details

• Alternative title: Umweltmonitoring im Entstehen: von der Übersicht über natürliche Ressourcen zur Beobachtung von Umweltveränderungen
• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Environmental monitoring in the making: from surveying nature's resources to monitoring nature's change ; volume:40 ; number:2 ; year:2015 ; pages:222-245 ; Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; Historical social research ; 40, Heft 2 (2015), 222-245

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Geschichte

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Aronova, Elena

Further information

• DOI: 10.12759/hsr.40.2015.2.222-245
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-426187
• Rights: Open Access; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:56 AM CEST