The environment is continuously challenged by the increasing pressures imposed by the industrial growth (emissions of greenhouse gases, surge of chemicals in the soil and the water supply, pollution by nutritious salts, creation of waste, etc). To address the problems of environmental pollution, the European Union has published various directives (Prevention and Pollution Control (IPPC) Directive – 1996, the Landfill Directive – 1999, the Water Framework Directive – 2000, etc). These directives promote an integrated approach which every industrial unit must follow to take into consideration air pollution, water resources and soil, waste creation, noise pollution, etc. In addition, these directives recommend the use of the best available techniques such that the usage of the best possible technology and know-how is promoted. Despite the existence of the directives, their application remains difficult. At the present stage, the application of the directives relies on the goodwill of each individual/organization and in some form of insufficient inspections (it is practically impossible for the small number of officers in the various environmental protection/monitoring authorities to check the emissions of pollutants for each organization). Currently, there is a lack of sufficient infrastructure for environmental monitoring, both spatially (in multiple points) and temporally (in regular time intervals).

Recent advances in wireless communications and electronics have allowed the development of low cost, low power, multifunctional sensor nodes that are small in size and can communicate in a wireless manner in small distances. These tiny nodes that include sensing, data and signal processing equipment, promote the idea of sensor networks in which each node has very limited capabilities, however, all together can collaborate in order to achieve a difficult objective. Such a network can constitute an economical and reliable solution to the problem of sufficient monitoring and control of the environmental quality. The methodologies and tools employed in the area of intelligent systems and networks can be beneficial to the aforementioned problem. A sensor network is capable of producing an enormous volume of data, which should be analyzed in order to be able to draw useful information/conclusions which can in turn be used either by the users of the system or to automatically activate the suitable actuators (ex, for the automatic chlorination of potable water).
Furthermore, the analysis of the collected data can offer deeper comprehension for the chain effect of emissions of various substances in the environment.