1. INTRODUCTION |
The System of monitoring the environmental impact on population health (Monitoring System) was implemented according to Decree No. 369 of the Government of the Czech Republic, 1991. The year 1998 is to be considered as the period of the fifth year of the standard operation of monitoring activities, as the individual subsystems have been run routinely since 1994. The Monitoring System is expected to undergo further development in agreement with the latest findings in the fields of pollutant indicators, data processing methods and presentation of the results obtained.
In the course of 1998, a detailed analysis of all monitoring activities was performed and an amendment of the subsystems of the Monitoring System was gradually elaborated. The amendment was approved by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic and by the Specialist Advisory Committee at the close of 1998, and went into force as of 1999. The objective of the amendment is to utilize experience acquired in proceeding years of monitoring, to react to technical changes in the individual branches of interest and to optimize the activities of the monitoring network.
The Summary Report of 1998 is the fifth in the series of this kind and its objective is to continue in the establishment of information and gradually to ensure an objective study of temporal series of the parameters chosen for monitoring and their evaluation. The results are presented in an already established manner so as to ensure the easy orientation of the reader in each of the annual reports. This allows easy comparison of all of the information published.
The report for 1998 presents for the first time also an evaluation of trends in the qualitative development of the studied environmental components and population health.
The Summary Report of the System of monitoring the environmental impact on population health presents the results obtained within the individual subsystems in 1998 with comparison to previous years and the aggregated results. It is intended for national and district administrations, the Public Health Service, cooperating departments and institutions, as well as the interested public. The results are shown, just as in every preceding year, in detail in the Special Reports of the individual subsystems that are parts of this Summary Report.
In previous years, together with this Summary Report, there was also published a Report on Special Monitoring of the Health of the Population in the Ostrava-Karviná Region in Relation to the Environment. For technical reasons, the latter shall be published separately by the Regional Public Health Center in Ostrava.
Remark: The terms and abbreviations used in the text, figures and tables are listed in chapter 11.