The National System for Environmental Monitoring (NSEM) is established and operated in accordance with Article 1, Clause 7 of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA). The system provides timely and reliable information on the elements of the environment and factors affecting it, on which base analyses, assessments and forecasts are performed to support the activities of preserving and protecting the environment from harmful effects. The system is managed by the Minister of Environment and Water through the Executive Environment Agency. ExEA administers the National Automated Syetem for Environmental Monitoring (NASEM) on the whole country, providing material-technical, methodological and software-information resources necessary for its operation and development. All measurements and observations are carried out by the structures of the ExEA in common, unified methods for sampling and analysis in accordance with the procedures ensuring the quality of measurements and data. All ExEA laboratories are accredited under the BS EN ISO/IEC 17025-General requirements for competence in testing and calibration from EA BAS.
ExEA maintains various databases at national and regional level. Databases at national and regional level are structured in components of the environment and using common nomenclatures.
Assessments of the state of environmental components and reporting of the data at national level is carried out by ExEA while the assessments done at regional level – by RIEW, and assessment and reporting of water resources at basin level – by the four Basin Directorates.
The system is organized in accordance with Chapter Eight of the EPA and includes the National monitoring networks for: air, water, land and soils, forests and protected areas, biodiversity, noise and non-ionizing and ionizing radiation. The Control and Information Systems on: emissions from harmful substances in the ambient air, waste water emissions in water bodies, waste information system, earth bowels protection information system are also included in the framework of NASEM.
Inquiries on the monitoring network operation
Inquiries shall be made by components/environmental factors, Regional laboratories/Regional Inspectorates of Environment and Water and River Basin Directorates. They are elaborated on the base of the information received and/or introduced in the National Environmental database of ExEA from NASEM.
Mapping and assesment of the ecosystems and their services in Bulgaria
Project: BG03.PDP1 "Improving Bulgarian Biodiversity Information system"