"The goal of ecological monitoring is to provide information about changes to the structure and function of ecosystems for use in impact assessment, education, environmental protection, or management. Environmental monitoring involves repeated measurements of inorganic, ecological, social, and/or economic variables in ecosytems in order to detect changes over time and to predicting future change.

Human activities have the potential to impact both environmental and the ecological sensitive areas. To effectively understand these impacts, it is important to understand their dimensions and dynamics. Ecological monitoring identifies any damage an ecosystem may be experiencing. It assesses how affected ecosystems change over time. Finally, it seeks to determine what the best means of prevention or mitigation might be. Ecological monitoring relies on long term programs of monitoring and research to provide information about the the causes and consequences of ecological changes.

Humans and their societies have always been sustained by environmental resources. For almost all of human history the most important resources have been potentially renewable, ecological resources. Especially important have been animals that could be hunted, edible plants that could be gathered, and the productivity of managed, agricultural ecosystems. More recently, humans have increasingly relied on the use of nonrenewable resources that are extracted from the environment, especially fossil fuels and metals."

Source:  Ecological Monitoring." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Oct. 2010 <http://www.encyclopedia.com/>.