A smoggy morning in Hanoi.

In a decision approved by the Government on February 14, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung agreed on the national master plan on environment and natural resource monitoring system needed to be built in 2021-30 with a vision to 2050.

The master plan will focus on building an environmental quality monitoring programme in inter-provincial river and lake basins in key economic regions and areas exposed to many sources of waste.

Cross-border environmental monitoring and biodiversity monitoring programmes will also be set up to provide information for timely alerts, forecast environmental quality and disclose information to the community.

Dung asked that the master plan cover the development of points, parameters, frequency of environmental monitoring of land, water and air at automatic monitoring sites nationwide.

The development of laboratory systems and their capacity for monitoring and analysing the environment should be included. Links among environmental data from localities must be set up.

Other tasks such as investment in automatic monitoring stations and enhancing the capacity of environmental monitoring should be implemented.

The master plan will cover all of Vietnam, including land, water, airspace and underground. Separate monitoring on each environmental component will be implemented to develop a master plan for the whole environment.

The funding for the plan will come from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s public investment fund. — VNS

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