Sensor technology applied to the environment

In past years, a new responsibility in the field of analysis has developed, for example, due to the increasing endangerment of the environment and the growing environmental awareness of the society. An accelerating legislation to protect the environment places strict limits on the release of chemicals into the environment which can be considered to consist of the three media water, air and soil. Pollutions of these three media are interdependent and pollution in one media usually affects pollution in the other two media, depending on the pollutant in question. This leads to the necessity of reliable monitoring of the environment for the presence of compounds which may adversely affect, for example, human health (Dennison and Turner, 1995).