MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. The system for the permafrost's background monitoring will be commissioned in Russia before end of 2025, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Sergey Anopriyenko told the State Duma hearings on legal aspects of issues, related to the permafrost.
"The system of background monitoring will be organized before end of 2025," he said. "In 2023, we will present methods and technologies and will pick 20 monitoring locations, which will receive necessary equipment."
"By late 2025, it will be a network of 140 monitoring stations," he added.
The monitoring system will cover the entire territory of perennially frozen ground till its southern edges in the Altai Region, he continued, saying the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI, St. Petersburg) will be the system's operator.
"Specialists will use received data to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from the permafrost melting, to predict climate change, and to draft forecasts for the country's socio-economic development. In 10-15 years, we will receive integral estimates of natural carbon emissions in Russia. Right now it is not possible to make integral estimates. Therefore, the task to create a background monitoring system is a most important innovative project of the national importance: to create a unified monitoring system for climatically active substances," the deputy minister said.
As for monitoring conditions of buildings and structures in the permafrost zone, he told the State Duma deputies that such control is currently carried out by owners of those buildings at their own expense. However, the national action plan for the second stage of adaptation to climate change until 2025 contains measures to monitor soil stability within settlements and around production facilities in the Arctic zone. The action plan includes respective changes to the legislation, including to the Urban Planning Code of the Russian Federation, he said in conclusion.