Measuring up to Disaster: The Necessity for Valid Baseline Data

Monitoring air, water and soil contamination by means of animals,plants, fungi and bacteria is increasingly in demand for assessing environmental quality, environmental impacts, and health and safety. It is essential that environmental monitoring by bioassays is credibly based on standardized procedures and on substantial scientific evidence which should include background measurements to establish baseline data. Cites case studies involving the use of organisms for monitoring heavy metals and radionuclides in order to demonstrate such procedural pre‐requisites in environmental surveillance.